A Journey of the Heart (6 page)

When we emerged from the thicket, we had only a short climb to the hilltop. We all stopped there to admire the view. The grass on the surrounding hillsides waved and billowed in the wind like an immense cloak shaken by an unseen hand.

"This way," said Namet, and she led us over the crest of the hill.

We were now facing north. Here the view was even more beautiful. Forest covered the hills to the northeast. In the distance I could just see, through a veil of mist, the mountains that guarded our eastern border. White clouds hung over them, bright against a deep blue sky.

I was too enchanted by the beauty all around me to watch where I was going, and my foot caught on something that sent me sprawling to the ground. I picked myself up and turned to see what had tripped me. It was a stone, hiding in the grass.

"Well done," said Namet. "Your foot has found the path."

I thought she was teasing me until I saw her face.

"Lead on," she said.

I had no idea what she meant. I looked again at the stone. Then I saw another a few feet away from it. Beyond that was another one. As my eyes followed them, they showed me the way. I followed the stones, and Namet and Maara followed me in single file.

The path led me in a circle around the hilltop until I passed the place where I began. Then I saw that we were treading a spiral path. When we started down it, the path had been invisible. As we trampled down the grass, the way revealed itself. Soon the grass would spring up again and all trace of it would vanish.

Then the path ended. As hard as I looked, I couldn't see where I might find the next stone.

"Now you must take your eyes off the ground," said Namet.

I looked up. From where I stood, through a narrow cleft in the hillside I saw a standing stone. A shiver ran down my backbone. I knew that Namet meant for me to approach the stone, but my feet felt rooted to the spot.

"Go on," said Namet, "before I starve to death."

I convinced my feet to move, but when I stood before the stone, I couldn't take another step. Namet slipped past me and laid her hand upon the stone in greeting. I half expected it to move aside to let us pass. Namet went past it on the left-hand side, and Maara and I followed her into the circle.

Although they are said to be quite common, I had only once before seen a circle of standing stones. I was a child then, and the stones were no taller than I was. The stones of this circle were smaller still. Except for the first one, which came up to my shoulder, the tallest stood not much above my knee.

"These are called the council stones," Namet told me, "because there are thirteen of them, as if they were placed here for the members of some council to sit on while they made their deliberations."

"Is that what they were used for?" I asked her.

"What do you think?"

"Why would anyone hold a council meeting out here?"

"I suspect no one would," said Namet.

"What were they for then?"

"That secret died with the people who set them here, but the stones most certainly have their uses. I've found a number of excellent uses for them."

"Like what?"

I expected her to tell me they were magical in some way. Instead she said, "It's a wonderful place for a picnic."

Namet found a smooth, sun-warmed stone to sit beside and unpacked our lunch. While we satisfied our hunger, no one spoke. Afterwards, we were too full to talk. Namet leaned back against the stone. Maara and I lay in the soft grass.

It was a perfect day. I closed my eyes. The sun warmed my body, and the cool breeze ruffled my hair. Comfortable and content with the two of them beside me, I felt we all belonged together in some special way. I was certain we would have found one another though worlds had separated us.

I might have dozed a little. I heard the murmur of voices. The three of us were talking about a journey we had made together. When I opened my eyes, Namet was talking about something else.

"I was living in my sister's house," said Namet. "I had just given birth to Eramet."

Maara saw that I was awake.

"Namet is telling us about the war," she said, and I sat up to listen.

"It started that same year," Namet said. "At first we didn't notice that anything was different, though the spring raids went on a bit longer than usual, and there were skirmishes in which people were badly wounded and sometimes killed. We killed their warriors too, but they sent more. No one understood how things were for them."

"Did their harvest fail?" I asked her.

"No," she said. "The year before everyone had had a wonderful harvest. Our granaries had never been so full. That's why it was so difficult to understand. It almost seemed they took pleasure in the fighting for its own sake. It wasn't until two years later that we learned about the painted people, the strangers from across the sea."

A delicious shiver of fear went through me as I remembered the stories I'd heard about the painted people when I was small. Huddled on my mother's lap, safe in her arms, I had listened fascinated to the tales of people with painted bodies and animal faces who crept out of the forest when the moon was dark to do dreadful things. The painted people had gone back to where they came from and were no longer a threat to us, so they didn't really frighten me, but everything about them seemed dark and mysterious and strangely exciting.

All I said was, "I remember the stories."

Namet suddenly leaned forward so that her face was close to mine. "What do you remember?"

"Not much," I said. "I'd nearly forgotten about the painted people until you reminded me. My mother didn't like those stories. She hated the painted people for the suffering they caused. When I was older, she wouldn't let me listen to the stories anymore. Whenever someone would start to tell one, she would send me off to bed. That only made me more curious, and I slipped out of bed and hid in the shadows to listen."

"What did you hear?"

"In one of the stories the strangers came across the sea riding on the backs of fishes. In another they were shape-shifters. They turned themselves into fishes and swam across the sea."

"Have you ever seen the sea?"

I shook my head.

"I have."

She paused for a moment, remembering. Then she said, "What else?"

"They said that when our warriors found the remains of the strangers' camps, in the fire pits, along with the charred bones of animals, there were also human bones."

"I remember those things," Namet said. "But we're getting ahead of the story." She settled back against the stone. "It was some time before those of us in Arnet's house understood what was happening. We were protected by Merin's mother in the north and by our allies in the east. We never feared the fighting would reach us. Of course Arnet sent warriors here, as was her obligation, and they brought us back reports of the fighting.

"At first no one paid much attention. I paid even less. I cared little about fighting that was happening so far away. I had a husband I loved and our little child. I was too caught up in my own concerns to let the bad news trouble me, but the next year things grew worse. The raids went on all summer. Merin's mother asked for as many warriors as we could spare."

"Were they fighting the painted people?" I asked.

"Not then," she said. "I don't believe the painted people ever came close to Merin's house, but they had harried many of the northerners out of their own homes. The displaced tribes had no choice but to live as best they could in the wilderness. What they couldn't hunt or grow they stole from one another or from us. The strangest thing was that they were more careless of life, both ours and their own, than they had ever been before, possibly because of what they suffered at the hands of the painted people, but we knew nothing of the painted people then."

She paused for a moment, and a troubled look came into her eyes. "At the end of that summer, my husband came here to see for himself if things were as bad as we'd been told. He didn't return before the snow fell, and because of my young child, I couldn't try to join him here. The following spring, as soon as it was possible to travel, I left Eramet with my sister and came to find my husband."

As Namet spoke it seemed to me that her white hair had turned the honey gold it must once have been, the lines in her face had softened, and her plump figure had become that of a young matron. In her eyes I saw her grief for a man who must be long dead. I felt too the longing of the child Eramet for the mother who had left her behind.

"When I arrived here," Namet said, "I was told my husband was dead. When I demanded his body, they admitted he'd been taken by the northerners. While the warriors who were with him believed he had been killed, no one saw him die, so I made up my mind to find him. I swore to myself I would either bring him back or die with him."

Namet paused, to see what I thought about what she had said.

"I was wrong to do that," she went on. "I had a child who needed me. She was barely two years old when I left her and nearly four when I returned. I don't think she ever forgave me, but I was young and headstrong, and I refused to believe that the Mother would take my husband from me. It seemed too cruel."

My heart grew heavy. The brightness of the day began to dim. I thought I knew what she was going tell us, and I didn't want to hear it. Maara moved restlessly beside me. I didn't think she wanted to hear the next part of Namet's story either.

"That spring when the raids began," Namet said, "I went out with a war party. I don't know what I was thinking. I had no idea where I might find my husband. I may have trusted that the Mother would lead me to him. In any case, as soon as I could get away, I left the others and went north alone."

"What happened?" I asked.

"I was captured, of course."

"By the painted people?"

"No, by the northerners. They took me into their homeland. There I saw the painted people and their handiwork." She frowned. "I was appalled by what I saw. It was clear to me that the painted people were a savage people who had no compassion in them."

"What did you see?"

"I hardly remember it anymore. For years I remembered everything about that summer. I couldn't get the images of the things I'd seen out of my head. I had to undergo a difficult healing, and then the memories began to fade. Now when I look back, it's like searching for a dream I dreamed years ago."

"You don't remember anything?"

"I remember odd things. I remember the northerners cooking their meat with strange-smelling herbs. I've never tasted anything like it since. I remember the sound of their strange talk. Their speech had a sharp sound and a choppy cadence to it. I never understood it very well, but I did grow to like the sound of it. And I remember the day I saw the sea."

"What was it like?"

"It was vast," she said. "Nothing but grey-green water everywhere, constantly in motion. Watching it made me dizzy. It curled up onto the land as if it would devour the earth from under our feet, and the sound as it beat against the shore was deafening."

"Why did the northerners keep you?" Maara asked.

"I have no idea. They may have thought I would be useful as a hostage. In any case, I went with them willingly. If my husband was alive, I hoped I might find him a captive among their tribes."

"Did they mistreat you?"

"No," said Namet. "They thought I was a witless fool. I certainly acted like one. Going alone into their territory was a foolish thing to do, but grief can make us do very foolish things."

"Why were you grieving?" I asked her. "I thought you believed your husband was alive."

"I hoped," she replied, "but I don't think I believed. A kind of madness had come over me. I had been so happy, and like all young people, I thought I had a right to my happiness. I told the Mother that I would refuse to live if my husband were no longer living. It seemed such a small thing then, to throw my life away."

Namet's talk of the sea and the northerners and the painted people had distracted me. Now I knew that soon we would hear the story of her loss. She must have loved her husband very much to leave her child to go in search of him. What must it be like to lose someone so beloved? My heart ached for the young woman she had been.

Namet leaned toward me and brushed a tear from my cheek. "Why are you crying?"

"For your grief, Mother."

"And last night?"

"Last night?"

"Whose grief caused your tears last night? Was it the Lady's?"

By then I was convinced that Namet must know everything that happened under the sun. I nodded.

"You brought her into Maara's room with you last night," she said. "I felt her there as if she'd followed you and was standing by the door. Did you know she was still with you?"

"Yes," I said. "No. I don't know."

"What did Merin say to you that hurt you so much?"

"Nothing." Then I remembered. "She said the night was full of ghosts."

Namet thought that over for a while. "Is that all?"

"Yes."

"What do you know of the Lady's grief?"

"Nothing, Mother, unless you're speaking of the grief that comes to everyone in time of war."

"Surely that's grief enough," said Namet.

She reached for me and lightly touched my cheek. "You have a gift. You have compassion for others because you have the gift of understanding how life feels to them. If the world were filled with more joy and less pain, I would envy you." She smoothed the hair away from my face and smiled. "I'm teasing you a little, but yours is a gift you must learn to master or the pain may overwhelm you."

"Will you teach me, Mother?"

"My dear," said Namet, "you already have a teacher."

I looked at Maara. Her eyes went from Namet's face to mine.

"How can I teach her?" Maara said. "I know nothing about this gift of hers."

"You know enough to let it be," Namet told her. "And you're the one she chose, so you will teach her well enough, whether or not you understand what that teaching is." She turned to me. "All I can tell you is this. Some hearts break from grief and some from joy. Some even break from love. But hearts break because they are too small to contain the gifts life gives us. Your task will be to let your heart grow large enough not to break."