"Maybe. Would you mind? He's very slim, I like his arms, and he has hair the color of fur," Gahrazel said wistfully.
I shuddered, not sharing this sentiment. "I most certainly would mind!" I said.
We went back through the attics, Gahrazel happily oblivious of my confusion. I was anxious to return to my room, to curl up on my bed and think about what Gahrazel had told me. I would have to familiarize myself with this knowledge; maybe then its sting would lessen. When the time came, would Cobweb and Terzian really force such a thing on me?
We scrambled, sneezing, out of the attics into a disused room that had no carpet on the floor and no curtains at the window.
"We haven't been here before," Gahrazel said. He was nosing around the walls, looking as if he knew what he was doing.
"What are you looking for?" I asked irritably, hovering at the door, holding onto Limba's collar, looking out at the carpeted corridor.
"You never know," Gahrazel answered mysteriously. He squatted down on the floor. "Ah, your father's room is below here."
"I'm not allowed in there," I said, unnecessarily.
"Look at this!"
I joined him. Limba whined and put his wet nose between us. There was a small, splintery hole in the floorboards. Gahrazel bent lower, his ringers splayed out on the floor.
"Don't!" I cried and tried to pull him back.
"Why not?" he asked reasonably, and I could not think of a suitable answer. "You can see his things; there is his wolfskin coat with the tails on. You can see quite a lot; look." He tried to drag me forward.
"I don't want to!" I hissed, thinking, he will know! He will know! Gahrazel's eyes narrowed. He would think I was afraid of Terzian.
"One day," he said, "coming here, looking down here, you may learn quite a lot." And then he laughed and I smiled back nervously, thinking, Never!
Of course, I had bad dreams again that night, of imagined violations, my body breaking. I woke up sweating, tangled in the sheets, too hot and yet my breath misted on the cold air in my room. We had heating in the house, but it was never turned on at night. I needed to talk with Cobweb badly. I wanted to ask him why he had never told me about aruna. He had taught me so much, things I could never have learned anywhere else, and yet, this most private, crucial information he had kept to himself. Did he ever look at me and wonder? Had he and Terzian discussed whom they would choose for me when the time came? It is because he thinks I am too young to be told! I thought angrily, yet I was sure he would have a reasonable explanation when I confronted him. ("Oh, that, Swift! I didn't want to bother you with that" or something similar.)
I went to Cobweb's room, but it was cold and in darkness, the bed smooth, and the curtains had not been drawn. I stood there for a moment thinking and then crept stealthily back down the corridor and hovered outside my father's door. An impish
voice in my head whispered, "Upstairs ..." but I visualized a gigantic NO! and denied the forbidden thought before it could form properly. Pressing my face against the door, I could hear nothing; then it opened silently beneath the pressure of my hand flat against the wood and I jumped back in alarm.
The room was empty, silent and cold as Cobweb's had been. Where are they? I thought frantically, suddenly too aware of the dark, the cold. Running, I went to the stairs and leaned over the bannisters. The hall lights were off. The staircase looked wide and mountainous, the hall beneath massive and shadowed; above me, glass in the chandelier clinked eerily in a breeze I could not feel. I thought that my father must be in his study; he often stayed up late in there. A dim light glowed from the drawing room. No doubt Cobweb was in there, reading beside the fire, dogs and cats sprawled along his side. I wanted only to feel his strong, slim arms around me and hear his soft, low voice soothe away my night terrors. The marble floor of the hall was so cold beneath my feet, it hurt.
The door to the drawing room stood ajar. I had already decided to creep in quietly, tiptoe to Cobweb's side and curl up against him. I wouldn't have to say anything; he would know. He would sigh and say, "What, dreams again, my little pearl?" and stroke my hair. Then I could tell him. I put my head round the door, one foot over the threshold.
They were together beside the fire. My first thought was, No, not now! Why now, this precise, immediate now? and my second thought was, I'm still dreaming. I didn't want to look, but I had to, to be sure. I remember thinking, they are truly one creature; there is no division. It was slow, sinuous, like snakes sliding over each other in the summer, on the flat, gray rocks beside the lake. Cobweb's fingers lost in my father's hair. Terzian's lips upon my hostling's white neck. They did not see me. I don't know how long I stood there; a second, an hour, but they didn't see me. Perhaps it was a dream. When I woke up next morning, in my own bed, warm and rested, it certainly seemed that way, but on my way to breakfast, I saw Cobweb coming out of Terzian's room, putting his hands to the back of his head, lifting up his hair, and his neck was bruised. I can say nothing to Cobweb now, I thought. He is part of it.
Gahrazel was consoling and sympathetic when I told him about it, but eager for explicit details, which I was reluctant to give. "At first," I said, feeling important and grave, "I was disgusted, yes, disgusted! Now... well, I'm not so sure."
"Your hostling is perhaps the most lovely har I have ever seen," Gahrazel mused, having been pursuing thoughts of his own.
1 nodded, still playing at being the somber keeper of knowledge. "Yes. Perhaps I have never seen him properly before, not all of him, not as a separate living thing. Now I know that people are still doing things when you're not there. Before it used to seem that they only existed when they wore being watched. I thought I knew all of Cobweb, but I don't, obviously."
That morning, I felt as if a lot of questions I had not been aware of asking had been answered. It was a day of thin clouds, racing in wisps before the wind.
"How uncanny that you should have seen them like that," Gahrazel said, "after what we'd been talking about on the roof."
"No," I answered. "The truth is that it is not the slightest bit uncanny at all."
CHAPTER THREE
The Flesh
Coalesce the flesh; a splendor Momentarily eclipsed by The phenomena of the spirit.
On Festival eve, we heated wine with spices over the fire in the drawing room, Ithiel and some other of my father's officers came up to the house, stamping snow off their boots in the hall and grabbing hold of members of our household staff as they flitted past, for festive caresses.
Gahrazel drank two mugs of hot wine too quickly and sat, glazed, by the hearth staring dreamily at Ithiel, who did not notice. Cobweb, whose favorite colors were habitually pale, unexpectedly wore loose-fitting trousers and a shirt of deep crimson material, sashed with gold. Ithiel said to me, "Remember this time last year, Swift? You seemed such a baby then. Enjoy your childhood while it lasts; I feel it will be brief." It was the first time Ithiel had ever talked to me properly, yet I could not answer him intelligently. When I looked at him, I could only clench my fists behind my back and make the banishing growling noise. Ithiel laughed, surprisingly not surprised and brushed his hand against my face. I fled to Gahrazel's side by the fire, but of course he would not speak to me.
At midnight, my father called to Cobweb across the room. I heard him say, "Share breath with me," as they stood face to face with people all around them. Cobweb said, "This is an old custom, Terzian!" and their lips met. I had to look away. Was I to be faced with this kind of intimacy all the time now? Perhaps I just hadn't noticed it before.
Festival day means eating, and that is precisely what we spent our time doing. This year, hara from the town seemed to notice me for the first time and they were exceptionally polite to Gahrazel, who had gone to bed the night before sulking but was now back in a good humor. We ate our main meal seated around a gigantic polished table in the largest room in the house. It was only used for functions and was, therefore, only opened up a couple of times a year. Terzian rarely entertained on a grand scale. Seated
next to Gahrazel, I asked him, "Do you miss your home?"
He shrugged. "I haven't been here that long; things are different here. It seems Forever is my home now."
After dinner in the evening, Terzian summoned Gahrazel to his study. Helpless with curiosity, I begged Gahrazel to come up to my room afterwards to tell me what it had been about. Had Gahrazel done something wrong? Was he to be sent home? I had got used to his company; we rarely argued and I did not want him to leave. I sat in my room, in darkness, on the window seat, staring out at the white garden. It is true that when a new year starts, everything does seem magical and sort of sad as well. It seems that everyone is given another chance, another year to get things right, the slate wiped clean. New beginnings. I sighed and misted up the windowpane. Already I could feel that unconscious childhood innocence slipping away from me. Outside the gray shadows were becoming just that. The spirits waved goodbye to a child who was solidifying, who would have to think about different things in future, until his casing cracked and a different being stepped out into the light. I had seen insect chrysalises hanging in secret places around the outbuildings in the garden. That was how I felt now. Insect! Insect! I thought angrily.
Gahrazel burst into my room about an hour later. He looked flushed, excited; I knew it could not have been bad news.
"Well?" I asked, and he threw himself down on the seat beside me, gripped my shoulders, shook his head, almost speechless. "Gahrazel, what?!" His excitement was infectious; I found myself smiling. He had become the light in the room; I could no longer see outside.
"Your father," he said.
"My father what?"
"We talked," Gahrazel said, settling down, letting go of me.
"Talked, yes ... about what?"
"Well, he asked me how I was getting on, polite stuff, so awkward. As if he cared! He gave me a letter from Ponclast to read. It was quite boring, you know, 'Are you behaving yourself?' Things like that. He'd obviously got someone else to write it for him. But he must have sent a letter to Terzian as well, because after I'd finished reading, Terzian said, 'Well now, Gahrazel, your father feels the time has come for me to talk to you.' " (He mimicked Terzian so well.) "I knew straight away what it was, of course: Feybraiha. I tried so hard not to be embarrassed, but it was difficult."
I nodded vigorously in sympathy, only too aware of how he must have felt. I dreaded the day when my father would call me into his study to talk to me about such things.
"What did he say?" I asked.
"Well, after a few moments' temporizing, he told me that soon I would begin to notice changes about myself, physically and in mood. He said if anything worried me, I was to go to him, any time. As if I would! He asked me if I knew what Feybraiha actually was. Thank God I did. There's no way I could have sat there and let him tell me. I think I'd rather die! I explained I had been taught all that before and he said, 'Then you know I shall have to choose someone for you. Gahrazel, you have not been with us long, so I was concerned that there's no one you'd prefer it to be. I realize it will be hard for you, having to take your first aruna with someone who will be a virtual stranger to you, but I shall choose wisely, and naturally, once your coming of age becomes apparent, its syaptoms obvious, you will spend some time in his company, which may make it easier.' Oh, Swift, I couldn't help it. Maybe I shouldn't have asked, but I had to. I said, 'Who is it then? Do you know yet?' Your father raised his eyebrows and gave me what they call a scorching glance. He smiled, but not at me. He said, 'It is obviously important to you. Is there a reason?' I couldn't answer. He let me squirm for a few minutes, just looking at me. Then he said, 'Oh, I'm not blind, young har. Not much goes on around here I do not notice. Therefore, I feel sure it will meet with your approval that my equerry Ithiel is the har I consider most suitable for the responsibility.' I could have jumped up and hugged him!"
I winced. "I hope you didn't!"
"No . . . He said, 'Run along now. Go and tell Swift all about it!' and laughed."
"He knows I know then?" I asked quickly, breathless.
"What do you mean?"
"He knows that I know, about aruna, about... oh, he just knows, that's all!" Suddenly I felt irritable and exposed.
"Swift, it will be a long time before .. . well, before any of this happens to you. You'll be surprised how different you'll feel when the time comes," Gahrazel said, reaching to touch me. I shrugged him off and looked out again at the garden. We were silent for a while.
"It will snow again," I said. Gahrazel moved closer to me on the seat and put his arms around me. I did not draw away.
"You're a funny little thing!" he said. I looked at him, his open, rather cheeky face radiant with pleasure, his long, curling dark hair. Gahrazel was nearly adult. Just a few hours into the new year and I could feel him growing away from me.
"Don't forget me," I said, thinking aloud.
"Forget you? How serious you are!" Gahrazel put his warm, smiling mouth against my cheek.
"Why do things have to change?" I asked as Gahrazel and I scuffed through the snow. Festival had come and gone; now we were faced with the rest of bleak, sunless winter before the spring came.
"Swift, you've become melancholy recently," Gahrazel said.
"You seem to thrive on change," I remarked.
Gahrazel considered this. "I don't really notice it. I suppose it's because I get bored easily, so I must like changes. I think you've had an easy life so far, living here. Why should you want anything to change? It's so perfect for you, isn't it? Being Cobweb's baby, being spoiled, not having to make decisions ..."
"Oh, Gahrazel!" I cried, but not too stubborn to recognize the truth.
We came to the tall trees where the crows lived. Cobweb had told me they were birds of ill omen and, when I was very tiny, their coarse, squabbling cries had always frightened me. Gahrazel looked up at the sky.
"Winter!" he exclaimed miserably. "Everything's so quiet, isn't it? Everything's sleeping."
"Or dead," I added. We stood among the gaunt, black trunks staring up at the untidy nests. Suddenly, the sky seemed to flash and I felt sick, so sick. "Gahrazel!" I screamed and sank to my knees in the snow.
"What is it? What is it?" he demanded in alarm. "Swift . . . ?"
"Look! Look!" I squawked, waving my arms.
"What? What?!"
"The birds!"
"What birds?"
"That's it!" I reached for him, half crazy. "There are no birds!"
"No birds?"
"Gahrazel, it's something I made happen! It's something I did! Oh God!"
I pressed my face against my hands. Suddenly the world seemed far too large. Gahrazel tried to make me stand up.
"Come back to the house," he said gently.
I told him everything. Perhaps I should have done so before. "The birds are gone," I moaned, "and now he will come back. Cobweb said so."
"Oh, come on, it may be just a coincidence," Gahrazel said reasonably. "There are a hundred reasons why the crows could have gone. Something may have killed them all, anything may have happened. Anyway, if they are birds of ill omen, it can hardly mean something bad if they decide to leave."
"You don't understand," I said grumpily. "They are trying to tell us something. They know. They are magical birds and the har with yellow hair is jinxed. That is why they left."
"Alright, alright, I do know about these things!"
"Do you think I should tell Cobweb?" I asked nervously.
Gahrazel shook his head. "No, it's obvious what we must do."
"It is?"
"Yes. We must protect the house." Here he smiled smugly. "I'm surprised you didn't suggest it yourself."
"But how?"
After lunch, Gahrazel went to the kitchen and asked the cook for a bag of salt. He must have made up some fantastic excuse for needing it, for Yarrow handed it over without question. For someone whose tribe supposedly shunned the use of magic, Gahrazel had a surprising grasp of occult lore. Perhaps he, too, had had a Cobweb figu
re in his formative years. In his room, we made protective talismans from herbs wound with horsehair and sanctified them with drops of our own blood. Then Gahrazel intoned a prayer over the salt and we were ready.
Outside, the afternoon air stung our faces with cold and the snow beneath our feet became really deep once we had left the neat garden behind. My trousers were soaked, my flesh smarting with chill. We trudged doggedly to the boundaries of Forever's lands, starting at the gate. Limba, who I insisted should accompany us, bounded ahead apparently unaffected by the cold. Gahrazel pinned one of the talismans to the gatepost, which was difficult as they were made of sandstone. "We must use only bent nails, made of iron," Gahrazel said. I was in awe of his knowledge. Then we made a trail of salt (very thin, to conserve the supply) from the gates along the edge of the high wall that hugged Forever's country. At intervals, we pinned up one of the talismans to the wall.