A Journey of the Heart (7 page)

Namet leaned back against the stone. She folded her hands in her lap and waited, watching me, as if she expected me to ask a question. Although her words had filled me with questions, I couldn't find a way to ask any of them.

"My husband died," said Namet gently. "He didn't die that summer. He died of a fever five years later, and I still grieve for him, as I grieve for Eramet."

I didn't know whether that made me feel better or not. I was glad for Namet's sake that nothing terrible had happened to him at the hands of the northerners or of the painted people. I had feared that one of the memories Namet had been unable to forget was the memory of watching him die a cruel death.

While a part of my mind was still thinking about the task she had set for me, I listened to the rest of Namet's story. I learned that there was much more to the war than anyone had told me. It had begun long before anyone was aware, and by the time it overtook our people, there was no stopping it.

Our people and the northern tribes had been enemies for as long as anyone could remember, but we were enemies who were respectful of each other. The painted people respected nothing. They would drive a tribe from its land, then plunder everything of value they could carry. The most terrifying thing about them was that they laid waste to everything they left behind. They slaughtered every animal they couldn't take. They burned homes and fields and stores of grain. When the northerners raided us, they had the sense to leave us enough to go on with, so that when they returned there would be more to plunder. The painted people left a wasteland behind them.

"My husband had spent the winter with one of the northern tribes," said Namet. "He was a gifted healer. He nursed the hurts and fevers of the people who had captured him. Because he was useful to them, both as a healer and a hostage, they let him live. When he learned of the painted people, he saw a way to save his own life and many other lives as well. He thought that if our people could make common cause with the northern tribes, together we could drive the painted people from our lands once and forever.

"My husband had learned a great deal about the northerners, and he hoped that an alliance with them might also put an end to the raids and skirmishes that every year brought grief to both sides. After he had lived with them a while, when he had begun to understand their language, he spoke to their elders of the possibility of an alliance.

"All summer their councils met and debated, but they could come to no decision. They feared the idea of an alliance was a trick, that my husband had proposed it as a ruse so that they would allow him to go home. They didn't want to lose a hostage who might someday prove valuable and be left with nothing to show for their misplaced trust. Then my husband heard that a woman of his people was held captive by a neighboring tribe."

Namet smiled, remembering one happy day from that unhappy time. "One morning he walked into the village where I was. I thought he was a ghost. I was sure of it when he spoke to the village elders in their own tongue. They talked for a long time. Then my husband came to me and took my hand. When I felt his warm hand in mine, I knew he was no ghost, but even if he had been, I would have followed him.

"We had only a little time together before he persuaded the northerners to send me home, to speak with our elders while they kept him as a hostage against treachery. With one of us to send and one to keep, they were willing. At first I refused to go. I told him I hadn't traveled all that way to find him only to leave him again, but he persuaded me that both our lives and many more might depend on this alliance. So I came home.

"I arrived here just as the first snow of winter began to fall. With my husband's life at stake, I used all my powers of persuasion to convince Abicel and the elders to join with the northerners against the painted people. I told them the dreadful things I'd seen, to make them fear the painted people more than they distrusted the northern tribes.

"All winter it seemed that no one spoke of anything else. Many said we should leave the northerners to their fate, that if the Mother favored us, we might never have to deal with the painted people at all. Others feared that when the northerners' strength was gone, the painted people might overwhelm us too. Others had grievances against the northerners they would not forgive, and they refused to lend warriors to the alliance. When the decision was made to send our warriors to join the northern tribes, those people were greatly criticized, but in the end, it was they who saved us.

"In the spring, I returned north, to tell the northerners that our people had accepted their offer. The northern tribes gathered their strength together. Warriors from Abicel's house and from many of her allies joined them. Together we went out to make war on the painted people, but when we searched out their winter camps, we found only the dead. A plague had visited them all. The dead lay in their beds as if asleep, and the few survivors we found hiding in the woods weren't fit to fight. They asked no mercy. The northerners, remembering their own dead, put them all to the sword. A few may have found their way to their boats and gone back to where they came from, but the painted people never again returned to trouble us."

The unexpected ending of Namet's tale confused me. Where were the battles outside the walls of Merin's house that my mother had told me of? When did her sisters die? Namet saw the questions in my eyes.

"Yes," she said. "There's more."

She closed her eyes and leaned back against the stone. She was silent for a long time, until I began to wonder if she would tell us the rest. At last she opened her eyes.

"Our people rejoiced at their easy victory," she said. "They believed the painted people had brought their misfortune upon themselves, that their disrespect for life had angered the one whose labor gave birth to the world. They said it was she who took the painted people back into the dark.

"While we were in their country, our warriors saw how much the northerners had suffered. We felt pity for them. In gratitude that we had been spared their suffering, we thought it only right to offer them our friendship and our help. They had been our comrades in arms. We felt we knew them, and we could no longer regard them as our enemies. Some thought, as my husband did, that we should build on this alliance. When we came home, we brought with us many warriors of the northern tribes.

"Those who might have spoken out against this plan had stayed at home. It was the young, the adventurous, the inexperienced, who had gone to fight. It was they who brought a northern army to our door.

"Whether the northerners had treachery in mind from the beginning no one knows. Perhaps they saw their chance to make good their losses at our expense. Perhaps they felt that, after all their suffering, the Mother might favor them and would give them what they had coveted for so long -- our crops, our animals, the land itself. Or perhaps it started with a drunken brawl over which warrior should take the best cut of meat. No one living now knows."

Namet said no more. There was no need. I knew the rest. I knew the stories of the battles almost by heart. Namet's story helped me to understand things I had never thought about before -- how the northerners had come unchallenged so far into Merin's land and why the fighting had been so fierce. The northerners would have fought with the desperation of those who have closed the door behind them. They had little to return to and much to gain from our defeat.

What I had missed I saw in Maara's eyes.

"No," said Namet, answering the question Maara had not yet asked. "No one blamed me, at least not publicly, but that didn't prevent me from blaming myself."

"Many shared the blame," Maara replied. "It wasn't yours alone."

"I alone brought about that dreadful alliance," Namet said. "But for me, none of our misfortunes would have happened. The painted people would never have been a threat to us, so in the end we lost much and gained nothing."

She turned to me. "And if not for me, your mother's sisters would not have died. Your mother would not have gone home to take her mother's place and you might never have been born." She smiled. "So you see, it is possible to pluck good fruit from an evil tree."

My mind was a confusion of questions. How could just one person be responsible for a war? I didn't see how she could blame herself for the decisions of so many people.

Maara spoke aloud what I was thinking. "How could you blame yourself? You could not have known what the result would be."

"No," Namet replied. "No one could have known."

Her eyes softened as she returned Maara's gaze. "I understand what you're saying, my child. I was only one link in a chain of events that led us into disaster. But you must look deeper for the truth."

She turned to me. "Do you think I did wrong?"

"No, Mother," I replied. "You thought you were doing what was best for everyone."

Namet turned back to Maara. "Do you share her opinion?"

Maara said nothing. The two women sat looking at each other until prickles began to run up and down my spine. The silence went on so long that I had to resist the urge to break it.

"If I had known the outcome, would I have done differently?" Namet said at last. "That's the question behind the question. And the answer is, I don't know. Because of what I did, I had my husband back. I had five years with him I would not have had otherwise. I can't wish that undone. What I've never been able to decide is if I would have urged the alliance on our people even if I had known the consequences, to save my husband's life."

"The answer to that question doesn't matter," Maara said. "It's a question you were never asked. You will never bear the guilt for even the most treacherous answer to it."

A tear slid down Namet's cheek. Maara looked away, embarrassed, but Namet reached out and took her hand.

"You are a gift," said Namet.

The shadows of the stones stretched across the circle. I lay back in the grass and thought about Namet's story. Namet fell into a doze, still sitting up, with her back against the stone. I caught Maara's eye.

"When you spoke of the question she was never asked," I whispered, "what did you mean?"

"Has life never asked you a question?"

"I don't think so."

Maara chuckled softly. "Life asks you questions every day," she said.

The next day Sparrow came home. I was practicing with my bow when I heard the soft footfall of someone approaching me from behind. I thought it might be Maara, coming to see how I was doing. When Sparrow slipped her arms around my waist, I caught the scent of lemon grass.

"Don't you know how to use that thing yet?" she asked me.

I paid no attention to her teasing. I turned in her arms and hugged her tight. "I've missed you," I said.

She let go of me and held me at arm's length. "Have you grown taller?"

"I don't think so."

She pulled me toward her, as if she were measuring my height against her own body. Then she bent and kissed me. "Will you come down to the willow tree?"

"Now?"

"Yes, now. When did you think?"

I hesitated.

"If you don't want to -- "

"Maara might come looking for me."

"Will she be angry if you're not here?"

"No."

"Then come on."

She took my hand and led me down the hill. We slipped through the curtain of drooping branches and settled ourselves on the soft moss under the tree. I leaned my bow against the trunk. Sparrow had never paid any attention to it before, but the carved designs caught her eye, and she ran her fingers over them.

"Where did you get this?" she asked me. "I've never seen a bow like it."

"My warrior gave it to me."

"Did she make this?"

Although Sparrow's guess provided a reasonable explanation, I couldn't bring myself to lie to her.

"No," I said. "She found it."

To my relief Sparrow didn't question me further. I couldn't tell her the truth about the bow without telling her about finding the body of the man Vintel had murdered. Then she would know that this was the bow that had killed Eramet.

"How was your journey?" I asked her.

"Better than I expected," she said.

"Did you see your mother?"

She smiled. "I did, and I actually heard her say that she was proud of me."

"Why wouldn't she be proud of you?"

"She used to tell me I aimed too high. She used to be afraid for me, afraid I wanted too much."

"Surely she would want as much for you as you would want for yourself."

Sparrow gave me an indulgent smile. "You're such an innocent. Slaves who fly too high are often brought back down to earth in most unpleasant ways."

"But you were not."

"No," she said. "I was not. I was lucky."

I knew she was thinking of Eramet.

Sparrow caressed my cheek. "Don't be jealous."

"I'm not jealous."

And I realized that I truly was not jealous of Eramet. I would have wished her back again in an instant, both for Sparrow's sake and for Namet's.

Sparrow pouted. "Not even a little?"

I laughed. "Well maybe just a little."

"I suppose that will have to do."

We sat looking at each other. Suddenly I felt shy. So, I think, did Sparrow.

"Tell me about Arnet's house," I said.

"Well," she said, lying back on the mossy bank, "nothing much has changed there in the time I've been away."

I lay down beside her and listened as Sparrow told me about Arnet's house and the people she grew up with. Many of her old friends had rejoiced to see her. She hadn't expected such a warm welcome from people who had known her as a slave and who now must accept her new position in life.

When she finished telling me about her journey, Sparrow turned to me.

"I missed you too," she said, and took me into her arms.

That evening the sunset was so lovely that Maara and I joined many of the others who went to sit on the hillside outside the earthworks to watch. When the light had faded and the others had gone in, I would have stayed on to enjoy the twilight, but Maara surprised me by sending me to bed.