A Journey of the Heart (3 page)

I nodded. I admired her courage, but at the same time it frightened me.

"Let us both be careful, then," I told her, "and perhaps the world will leave us alone."

But the world did not leave us alone. The next day Sparrow stole a moment to tell me she would have to spend the entire day, and most of the next few days as well, making preparations for a journey. In three days' time, on midsummer's day, Vintel intended to travel with a band of warriors who would be returning to Arnet's house. Eramet's people had not yet been told of her death, and Vintel wanted to bring the news to them herself. It would be a journey of several weeks. She intended to take Sparrow with her.

"We won't have much time together before I have to go," Sparrow said.

I nodded that I understood. I tried not to show my disappointment.

"What will it be like for you to go back there?"

Sparrow shrugged. "I didn't expect to see Arnet's house again until I returned with Eramet. I don't much like the idea, but perhaps I'll find my mother there. I hardly knew how much I missed her until I thought I might see her again."

"Why would you doubt that she'd be there?"

"One never knows what may happen to a slave. I don't even know if she's still living."

A hard knot of anger formed deep in my belly. If my mother were to die, someone would be sent to tell me, so that I could go home and say my farewells to her before her spirit traveled beyond the sound of our tears.

"May you find her in health and power," I said.

Sparrow smiled at the familiar words of the ancient blessing.

"Health I may hope for. Power I never will."

"She will find her power in you," I told her.

On the morning of midsummer's day I woke early. Sparrow lay at my back, her arm around my waist. I kept still, waiting for her to wake. More than anything I would miss this closeness to her. I smiled to myself, remembering how impatient I had been with my mother when she would approach me silently from behind and slip her arms around me. As much as I needed to free myself from her embrace, I missed the comfort of being in her arms. I relaxed against Sparrow's body and opened my heart to her, to draw this sweet feeling into me against the time when she would be far away.

Sparrow's arm tightened around me, and her lips brushed the back of my neck.

"I have to get up," she said.

"I know." I turned in her arms. "I'll miss you."

Sparrow reached for something that lay hidden beneath her pillow.

"Maybe this will keep you from forgetting about me while I'm gone," she said, and handed me something wrapped in a ragged shirt.

I sat up and unwrapped her gift. It was a bit of soft leather with a thicker piece sewn onto it and a few thongs that I thought must be meant to tie it to something, but I couldn't imagine a use for it. Sparrow took it from me. She held it against the inside of my left forearm and tied it in place.

"This will keep that bow of yours from taking the skin off," she said.

Once she saw that I understood its use, she started to untie it. I stopped her and pulled my shirtsleeve down to cover it.

"Let me wear it a while."

She smiled with pleasure.

"Your gift is in the kitchen," I said.

I took Sparrow into the cool pantry where meat and milk were kept. There I found the package I had made up for her the night before. Sparrow unwrapped it to discover a loaf of the sweet honey bread I knew she loved, a thick slab of cheese, hard and fragrant with age, and some dried fruit. One of the kitchen servants had baked the bread for me in exchange for three rabbit skins. The cheese and the fruit were an afterthought.

"For your journey," I told her.

She was as pleased with my simple offering as if it had been a feast.

We hardly had time to exchange a few words of farewell before we heard Vintel and the others of their party clatter down the stairs. After a quick breakfast, they started on their journey, and I watched them out of sight.

Midsummer's day was not a holiday in Merin's house. The elders withdrew from the household to conduct the ritual of the longest day, but for the rest of us a bustle of activity marked the turning of the year. The warriors who had completed their time of service to the Lady would leave for home, as well as many of the young women whom the Lady had fostered. Others, like Vintel, would travel with them to visit the households of friends. By early afternoon all the travelers had left. The house felt empty.

Maara found me sitting in the shadow of the earthworks by the practice ground. I had gone there hoping to find someone to keep me company, but the field was deserted.

"We shouldn't waste the day," she said.

She took me by surprise. My mind was far away, thinking sad thoughts and missing Sparrow and my other friends who had left the household. All around me were the empty places where they should have been, at the companions' table, in the bower, here on the practice ground.

"What's the matter?" Maara asked me.

I shook the lonely thoughts out of my head. "Nothing."

"Come on, then."

She started down the hill. Then I noticed that she was carrying my bow and a handful of arrows. She had brought only the heavy bow. After I had strung it, she handed me an arrow. It was different from the arrows I had used before. The fletching was small and tight. It had a small stone tip, and the thick shaft was almost perfectly straight.

It took all my strength to draw the heavy bow. I drew it as she had taught me, with a steady pull until my thumb brushed the hinge of my jaw. I couldn't have held that position for more than a moment. As soon as I had the bow fully drawn she said, "Let go." The arrow flew straight and true and buried itself half its length in the sun-baked earth of the hillside.

I could hardly believe what I had done. Although I practiced with the light bow every day, sometimes for hours, I had never before done everything exactly right. This time was different, and my body knew it. For the first time everything had been in the right place. Elbows, shoulders, feet, all had been perfect. A surge of excitement went through me, and my body hummed with pleasure at what it had just accomplished.

Maara was as pleased with me as I was with myself, but when I reached for another arrow, she shook her head.

"That's enough for today," she said.

"Why?"

"Let your body remember what perfection felt like."

She reached for the bow, and I unstrung it and handed it back to her. Then I pulled up my sleeve and started to untie the thongs of the leather guard.

"What's this?" She took hold of my wrist and examined the guard.

"Is it all right for me to wear it?"

"Of course," she said. "It's a very good idea."

"Sparrow gave it to me this morning, for midsummer's day."

"For midsummer's day?"

"Midsummer's day is a gift-giving day."

"There are special days for giving gifts?"

"Yes," I said. "The days when the year turns, at midsummer and midwinter, are gift-giving days. Year days too, at least for children."

"What are year days?"

"When a child starts another year of life," I said, "each member of her family gives her a gift."

"And on midsummer's day? Do members of a family exchange gifts on midsummer's day?"

I nodded.

"Then I should have a gift for Namet."

I was surprised that Namet hadn't given Maara her gift already. Then I remembered that Namet would have been with the elders in the place of ritual since before dawn, and she might not emerge until late that evening.

"What does one give to one's mother?" Maara asked me.

When I was small, I used to pick my mother a bouquet of flowers or give her something I had made myself. One year I gave her a lumpy sheep made of clay. Another time I wove a scarf for her that unraveled a bit every time she wore it. When I was bigger, I more often did things for her to make her day a little easier.

I couldn't think of anything for Maara to give to Namet. Maara had so little, and everything she owned she needed.

"Well," I said, "the reason for gift-giving is to let someone know you care for her, and if you care for someone, you pay attention to the things she likes. What does Namet like?"

Maara considered that for a minute.

"She likes the night sky," she said.

"The night sky?"

"Her room has no window. Several times she's come into my room in the middle of the night. When I asked her why, she told me she liked to look at the night sky."

I remembered how my mother used to come into my room when she thought I was asleep. She would watch by my bed for a little while before she tucked my blankets around me and kissed me good night.

"I doubt it's the night sky she comes to see," I said.

"What do you mean?"

"She comes to see if you're all right. It's something mothers do."

"Oh," she whispered.

I smiled at her. "What else does Namet like?"

"I can't think of anything else."

"Well," I said, "you'll think of something, but it will pop into your head when you're not trying to think of something."

She chuckled. "You're probably right."

While she went to retrieve the arrow I'd shot, I tried to come up with something for us to do that would keep us outdoors a while. I was in no hurry to return to Merin's house. It felt too empty.

"We could go swimming," I suggested when she returned.

"All right," she said.

After our swim we lay in the sun on the riverbank until we were dry enough to put our clothes on. Once we were dressed, Maara was content to stay where we were. She sat cross-legged in the grass, gazing off into the distance, lost in her own thoughts. I lay on my stomach and watched the river go by.

At last Maara broke the silence. "I have a gift for you," she said.

I turned to her, surprised. "You do?"

"A very small thing," she said. "But it's a gift you gave to me, in a way, and I want to share it with you."

I didn't understand. I had never given her a gift. And what gift could she have for me? Only an hour before she had never heard of our custom of gift-giving on midsummer's day.

"When Namet took me into the place of ritual," Maara said, "she made me a child again. She has a power in her eyes. When she looked at me, she saw the child, and I became the child."

I nodded that I understood. I too had felt the power of Namet's eyes.

"She touched me as a mother touches her child, and I understood that it was Namet, but at the same time there seemed to be another pair of hands that I remembered. Namet put her arms around me, and there was also another pair of arms. I felt her heartbeat and remembered the beating of another heart. She brought back to me the mother who gave me birth at the same time that she became my mother."

While Maara spoke, I kept very still. I had forgotten all about the gift she'd promised me. It was gift enough that she would share these things with me.

"For a long time," she said, "there were two women with me, and I was in two different places, and I was both a child and a woman. The child heard strange words she understood and smelled food cooking on the hearth and waited to be called to supper. She ate her fill and was put to bed, and her mother's voice lulled her to sleep. Her mother told the child a story that the woman remembers."

Deep in the heart of the forest, a little man lives. You may see the feather in his hat sticking out from behind the trunk of a forest oak, but if you look behind the tree he will be gone. You may hear him call his dogs to the hunt, and you may hear the voices of the pack baying in the night, but they will run past you unseen like the wind. You may wake in your own bed in the middle of the night to hear the softest footfall, and in the morning you may find a single leaf lying on your new-swept floor.

Deep in the heart of the forest, a little man lives. Ask him his name. He has none. Offer him bread. He eats none. Pour him good ale from the pantry keg. He will pour it out upon the floor. Water from the spring he drinks, and on his table you will find venison and quail. He lives in a house of twigs, the gift of trees that never knew the ax. He lives in a house of grass that never knew the scythe. He lives in dens dug by badgers under the roots of trees. He lives in the open air.

Deep in the heart of the forest, a little man lives. Go out singing to sow a field, and from the hedgerow you will hear him sing. Go out dancing to tend your flock, and you will see his shadow dancing by your side. Go out into the rain, and where the water pools, gaze at his reflection gazing back at you. Deep in the heart, a little man lives.

Maara looked at me. I met her eyes. They asked me if I would accept her gift. I couldn't answer her. I could find no words that wouldn't break the spell.

"I wish I had a better gift for you," she whispered.

When I opened my mouth to speak, she silenced me with a wave of her hand.

"When you found me in the oak grove," she said, "I know you were afraid. You could have told the Lady what you saw, and she would have broken the tie between us and set you free if you had wanted it. Instead you brought me Namet, and Namet brought my mother back to me, and my mother gave me back that story. It's just a small thing, but it's all I have of my own."

"I wish I had a better gift for you too," I told her, "but this is all I have."

And I took her hand in both of mine and kissed it.

We walked back to Merin's house in silence. I was still wrapped in the power of her gift. Someday I would tell her how beautiful it was, but at that moment no words of mine could be enough.

When we'd had our supper, Maara sent me off to bed. She waited up for Namet.

After Sparrow left that morning, I moved my bed from the bower back into the companions' loft, and I lay where I could watch Maara sitting alone by the cold hearth in the great hall. She'd had no time to find a gift for Namet, but if she had thought of anything like the gift she'd given me, Namet would be delighted.

I fell into a heavy sleep. I may have slept for an hour or more. When I woke, the last of the long twilight was fading. Maara was still sitting by the hearth. I was about to close my eyes again when she stood up, and I saw Namet approach her.