A Journey of the Heart (26 page)

"What can we do?"

"Power always rests in a delicate balance," said Merin, "and power comes from many things, not from strength of arms alone, but from wisdom and experience. We need only hold the balance."

I was reassured by the strength of purpose I saw in Merin's eyes. "How can Vintel believe that she could challenge your power?"

"She may not need to. I think Vintel believes I'm going to die."

"Vintel is wrong."

"Perhaps." She shrugged and smiled at me, as if it didn't matter.

"You're not going to die. I'm not going to let you die."

Merin looked amused. "Has Tamras power over life and death?"

"No," I said, "but you do."

"If the Dark Mother should reach for me," she said gently, "how can I resist her?"

I had meant to scold her, but my eyes filled with tears. "Please," I said. "Don't speak of death as if she is your friend."

"Friend or not, no one escapes her."

"But you invite her," I said. "You court her. You challenge her. Someday she may hear you."

Merin looked long into my eyes. "What would you have me do?"

"Love your life a little longer."

I watched her struggle with herself. Then she said, "I'll make a bargain with you. I will love my life for as long as Tamnet lives."

I would have liked to sit in on the council meeting, but since nothing that would be discussed concerned me, at least officially, I waited in the great hall with Maara and worried about it. The meeting was a long one, and I grew impatient.

"The elders are long-winded," Maara reminded me.

At last Namet emerged from the kitchen. Fodla was with her. They spoke together for a few minutes. Then Namet came over to where we were waiting and sat down beside Maara.

"In a little while, let's go for a walk," she said calmly.

Maara nodded. We sat silent for a time. I studied Namet's face. It was untroubled, and some of my impatience left me.

After half an hour, Namet stood up. "Let's go," she said.

Maara and I followed her out of the great hall. Trying to look like we were only out for a stroll in the spring air, we walked in silence down the hill. Namet took us to the river, where she sat down on the mossy bank. She slipped her shoes off and dangled her feet in the water. Maara and I sat down on either side of her.

"Merin held her own," said Namet. "She seemed almost her old self today." Namet turned to me. "Is she doing as well as she appears to be?"

"I believe she is," I said. "She has more good days now than bad ones."

"How bad are her bad days?"

"She's often very tired. She doesn't sleep well."

"Why not? Is something troubling her?"

"She complains of dreams," I said.

"I don't wonder."

I must have looked surprised.

"Merin keeps a tight grip on her demons," Namet said, "but surely there must be a few of them still lurking under the bed or perched in the rafters out of reach."

Namet's words drew a picture in my mind of vague, malevolent shapes hovering in the shadows of Merin's room.

"Are you sure it's only dreams that trouble her?" asked Namet.

"She tries to hide her disappointment, but I believe she was counting on seeing my mother again this spring."

Namet made an impatient gesture. "She needs to get that nonsense out of her head."

"I disagree with you," I said quietly.

Namet gave me a stern look. "Merin has work to do. She needs to pay attention."

"She is paying attention," I told her. "I had a long talk with Merin yesterday. She spoke to me about keeping the balance between her power and Vintel's. She understands what Vintel intends, and she has already taken steps to forestall her."

"But still Vintel's power grows," murmured Namet. "Vintel doesn't have Merin's depth of understanding, but one thing she does understand. She knows what fear does to people."

Maara made a noise deep in her throat.

"Vintel will use their fear," Namet said. "She will stand between them and their fear, so that challenging her power will be too terrible for them to contemplate."

"And when the troubled times are over?" I asked her, remembering what Merin had told me.

"When will that be?" said Namet. "Vintel's power depends on troubled times."

We had waited so long for mild weather that Maara and I made a point of going outdoors every evening to enjoy it. Sitting together on the hillside, watching the changing light, we sometimes talked of things that didn't matter, but we seldom felt the need to talk. In silence we took pleasure in the twilight and in each other's company, until the mist, rising from the river, chilled the night air.

That evening the tranquillity around us couldn't calm our troubled thoughts. Although Maara had said nothing to me about our talk with Namet, I knew she was worrying about it. I thought about how different this year had been from the year before. When had things changed, and why? The weather, of course, had been against us, but I also remembered what Maara told me after the battle on Taia's day. Her prediction had come true. The northerners had returned, both for food to ease their hunger and for blood to ease their hearts, and Vintel had made the most of it.

A thought popped into my head, and I blurted it out before I took time to think about it. "Did Vintel pursue the northerners last year on purpose?"

Maara stared at me for a moment, as if she didn't understand my meaning. Then her eyes changed. "You think she intended to provoke them?"

"Namet said that Vintel's power depends on troubled times."

Maara lightly brushed my forehead with her fingertips. "What god kissed your brow," she whispered, "to give you such understanding?"

I smiled with pleasure at her praise, although I wasn't sure I understood it. "It was your words I remembered."

Maara frowned. "What I don't understand is why. What prompted her to challenge Merin now?"

That was something that made no sense to me. For years Vintel had been Merin's right hand, a respected leader of warriors, and she had seemed content with her position. When had she first aspired to something more?

"We know what Vintel doesn't want," said Maara. "She doesn't want you to be the Lady's heir, not because she always wanted that place for herself, but for another reason." Maara put her elbows on her knees and rested her chin on her clasped hands. "There is a malice in what Vintel does that baffles me."

I counted up all the reasons why Vintel hated me. I had refused her, and made a fool of her, though that much was her own fault. And I had chosen for my teacher someone she regarded as an adversary. Vintel's hatred for Maara was easier to understand, because Maara was a threat to her, while I was merely an annoyance. Perhaps she hated me because through me Maara might someday hold a power even greater than Vintel's.

As if her thoughts had mirrored mine, Maara said, "It's not enough. There's something else. Something we haven't thought of."

I would have liked to sit longer with Maara, but in the morning Sparrow would leave with Vintel for the frontier, and tonight would be my last opportunity to spend a little time with her. Vintel kept her so busy that I hardly had a chance to exchange a word with her. The night before, she had come to the companions' loft after I had been long asleep. In the middle of the night I awakened to find her arms around me. Remembering how comforting it was to lie in someone's arms, I missed her at that moment more than I had missed her when she was gone.

After I said good night to Maara, I brewed Merin a bowl of chamomile and took it up to her room. She was in bed, already dozing, so I pinched out her lamp and left her.

I found Sparrow waiting for me in the companions' loft.

"Where have you been?" she said impatiently. Before I could answer her, she took me by the hand and led me downstairs and out the back door.

"Where are we going?"

"I need to talk to you."

"Why?"

"Wait," she said.

She took me to a favorite place of ours by the river, where a little meadow led down to a strip of sand along the shore. We sat down and leaned back against the water-smoothed trunk of a great tree that lay half buried in the warm sand. The moon was low in the sky behind us, and Sparrow's face was in shadow. I turned to her and tried to make out her expression.

"What?" I said.

"Are you ever afraid?" she whispered.

I felt my heartbeat quicken at her words. "Of course," I replied. I wondered what she had seen on the frontier, to make her say such a thing. "Are we in danger?"

"In danger?"

"From the northerners?"

"Oh," she said. "The northerners are everywhere this year, and they're not going to go home until the snow falls, but that's not what frightens me."

"What is it then?"

"Things here are different."

"Different? How?"

"Don't you feel it too?"

"I suppose so," I admitted. "A little."

"And you're different," she whispered.

"I am?"

She turned and met my eyes. "Are you still my friend?"

"Of course I am." Her strange talk was making me more afraid.

"What's the matter?" I said. "What's wrong?"

Sparrow turned her gaze back to the river. "They say the Lady is unwell."

"She's mending," I told her.

"They say you still spend hours with her every day. They say you go to her every afternoon, that you enter her chamber without knocking, that you come and go as you please. I thought you were afraid of her. I thought you disliked her and distrusted her. Now it seems you've become her familiar."

I sighed. There was so much Sparrow didn't know about what had changed between Merin and me.

"I'm her healer," I said, thinking that was the simplest explanation.

"I hear you're more than that."

"What have you heard?"

"I hear you're to be named her heir."

"Who told you that?"

She turned and looked at me. "Is it true?"

I nodded, and she looked away.

"When did you learn the Lady had these plans for you?"

"Last fall. My mother told me."

"You never said anything to me." There was more sadness than accusation in Sparrow's voice. "You might have told me that my friend would someday inherit a position of great importance." She gave me a sidelong glance. "Unless my friend found our friendship inconvenient."

I was too astonished to speak. Sparrow misunderstood my silence. She started to get up.

"Wait," I said, and took hold of her wrist.

She sat back down, but she wouldn't look at me.

"In the first place," I told her, "I didn't decide until midwinter's day that I would accept the Lady's offer. And in the second place, it didn't seem wise to speak about it to anyone, even to my friends, while there were unpleasant rumors going around."

"Rumors?" said Sparrow. "What rumors?"

I had never mentioned the rumors to Sparrow. If she had heard them, she should have come to me as a friend and told me about them. If she hadn't, I hesitated to repeat them. I understood why she might not have heard them. The companions, knowing she was my friend, would have been careful not to speak ill of me in her hearing. For the same reason, Vintel would not have spoken to Sparrow about her suspicions, and she would also have been careful to conceal from any friend of mine that the rumors came from her.

"When it began to occur to people that I would be the Lady's choice," I said, "some people spoke against me because of Maara. They feared a stranger having so much influence."

Sparrow gestured with her hand as if she were brushing the idea aside. "That's the silliest thing I ever heard. Maara has nothing to gain by treachery and much to lose. Besides, who would pay attention to a few whispers?"

"They were more than whispers. They frightened people enough that they prevented my adoption. Now we'll have to wait, until this time of trouble is over, and until Merin is strong again."

Sparrow thought that over.

"How did you hear about my becoming Merin's heir?" I asked her.

"Vintel mentioned it to me. She seemed to think I knew all about it."

"What did she say?"

"Only that she wondered why there had been no announcement."

"What did you tell her?"

"I told her the truth," she said. "I told her I knew less than she did." Sparrow scooped up a handful of sand and let it drift through her fingers. "I thought you must not want my friendship anymore, if you forgot to tell me something so important."

I knew I should be cautious about what I said to her, but I had hurt her feelings, and I wanted her to understand.

"I didn't like to put you in a difficult position," I said. "I think Vintel would prevent me from becoming Merin's heir, if she could."

I held my breath, waiting for Sparrow's answer.

"Why would Vintel do that?"

"I think she wants Merin's place for herself."

"What?" Sparrow stared at me in disbelief.

"Hasn't she ever suggested such a thing to you?"

"No," she said. "I don't believe it."

"Nevertheless, I think it's true."

Sparrow shook her head. "You're wrong." She got to her knees and turned so that she was facing me. "Vintel has taken more responsibility upon herself since the Lady's illness, but she only means to free her from care while she recovers."

The moonlight shone on Sparrow's face, and I saw that she believed what she was saying. She believed so completely in Vintel's good intentions that for a moment I could almost believe I had misjudged her.

"If I were in Merin's place," I said, "do you think Vintel would submit to my authority?"

"That time is a long way off."

"I hope so, but in the meantime, I would be the daughter of the house. Is Vintel prepared to treat me with the respect due to Merin's child and to respect Maara as my counselor?"

Now Sparrow was listening, although doubt still lingered in her eyes.

"And could Vintel believe that when I stand in Merin's place, she will be my right hand?"

Sparrow slowly shook her head.

"She may not always have been so ambitious," I said, "but now I think she would prefer to succeed Merin herself."