Changer's Moon (16 page)

She crossed to the far side of the kitchen. The first room there held split logs packed in from floor to ceiling, filling the whole of the space. Depending on how deep the room was it could be enough to last till spring, Maiden grant there'd be a spring. She shut that door, opened the next. A pantry of sorts. A flour barrel that proved to be half full when she took the lid off. A few crocks of preserved vegetables she was a little doubtful about but not enough to throw them out; they'd stretch her supplies a few days longer. A root bin, half full of several sorts of tubers, rather withered and wrinkled but mostly still edible. The vandals for some reason seemed to have left the Keeper's quarters intact when they'd vented their spite on the sacred rooms.

She went back into the bedroom for the satchel and the bucket, hauled them into the kitchen, piled them on the table. She dusted off the shelves in the storage closet, sneezing now and then, eyes watering, then emptied the satchel of the kitchen things, the food and utensils she'd brought with her and set them on the shelves, item by item, sighing at the meagerness of her supplies. In a few days she'd have to do something about food, but that could wait. She set the clothing and other things on the table to be put away later, except for the sleeping smock. She shook it out and carried it into the other room, hung it on a peg beside her cloak, untied her sandals and stepped out of them, dragged the wet cold robe over her head, hung it on one of the pegs, pulled on the smock. Taking the the quiltroll from the worktable, she pulled off the cords without trying to untie the knots. She could deal with them later when she wasn't so tired. She spread the quilts on the bed, not bothering with the dust. That was something else for later. The fire was already warming the room, turning it into a bare but cheerful play of light and shadow, of color and coziness. And the warmth was multiplying her weariness until she was almost asleep on her feet. She added some more wood to the fire, then stumbled blindly to the bed, stretched out, pulled the second quilt over her and was asleep before she murmured more than the first words of the sleep blessing.

When she woke, the fire was out but warmth lingered in the room. She sat up, the rope webbing sagging under her, the mattress pad rustling. She expected pain and stiffness but felt neither. She touched her shoulder, the one that should have been bruised and painful. She felt nothing, pulled loose the neckstring, pushed aside the heavy cloth, looked at her shoulder. It was smooth, firm and pale, no sign of bruising, not even a reddening or depression in the skin. She jabbed her thumb into the muscle. Nothing. She smiled.

The light coming in the uncovered window was so dim it barely woke the colors in the glass. She got up off the bed and went to look at the robe; it was still damp about the hem and streaked with mud. She thought of washing it, then shook her head. Too much work to do, might as well finish cleaning the Keeper's quarters, the sanctuary and the schoolroom. I can wash both of us when that's done, my robe and me.

She put on the robe, tied the cord and bloused the top over it until the the damp hem was hiked almost to her knees. She went into the bare foyer. The fire there was long out but a remnant of warmth lingered in the stone. She took down the bar and tried to open the door. It wouldn't budge. She set her shoulder against the planks and shoved. It scraped reluctantly open just enough to let her put her head out.

The snow was smooth and new in the narrow court. It must have snowed while she slept, covering her traces. If they're looking for me now, luck to them. She rubbed at her nose, giggled, a little lightheaded with hunger and the long sleep. New flakes were beginning to dust down, settling onto her hair and eyelashes. It was cold and still out there, a stillness so thick she could feel and smell it. She pulled the door shut, slipped the bar back and went into the kitchen.

She worked the pump handle until her arms were shaking, but brought nothing up. She drew the back of her hand across her sweaty face, closed her eyes and tried to remember what the ties had done to start a pump. Priming, she thought suddenly, water to fetch water.

A melted pot of snow later and the icy flow from the shrine well was gushing out to fill her bucket, then one of the pots. There was a bread oven in one corner and a brick hearth raised about waist high with an open grate and a grill over a firebox. She put some sticks of wood on the hearth, carved off some curls from the chunk of resinwood and put them in the box and snapped the firelighter. A few sparks, a few puffs and the curls were crackling. She added sticks of wood, watched until they caught, added a few more, then set the pot of water to boil. All too aware of the hollow in her middle, she cut a slice from the loaf, smeared a spoonful of jam on the bread and set it aside, cut a hunk of cheese, put it beside the bread, dropped a pinch of cha in a mug. While the water heated, she went briskly through the bedroom, into the foyer and opened the left-hand door.

For a long, numinous moment, she stood with her hand on the latch, looking into the dark room, feeling as if she was only now entering into her tenure as Keeper.

She wandered through the sacred rooms—the Maiden Chamber, the vestiary, the vessel room, scowling at the disfiguring smears of black paint everywhere, floor, walls, ceiling, at the broken vessels, the dried scum of oil and unguents, the books that were tatters and black ash, the tapestries turned to rags and thread, half burned. There were deep scratches everywhere and other muck as if the hate and rage in the Followers who did the damage wouldn't leave anything alone, wanted to pull down the walls and soil what they couldn't destroy. The worst of the damage was lost to the shadows but she saw enough to disturb and discourage her. So much to do. She shook off her malaise and went back to the kitchen.

After washing down bread, jam and cheese with cha almost too hot to drink, her dejection vanishing as her hunger abated, she went rummaging for something to hold the candles she'd found in the pantry. The gloom was thickening outside and in as the day grew later and the snow fell harder. The quiet was gone, the wind screeching past the windows, an eerie lonesome sound she hated. As she poked into the corners and crannies of the kitchen, the fire hissing and popping in the firehole, she was nervous for a while out of old habit, then was startled by the realization that she rather liked the wind's howl. It was as if the wind wrapped her in its arms and protected her from everything that would harm her. She rubbed at her cheek, shook her head and went back to her search, relaxed and easy in a way she couldn't define or comprehend. She located several wooden candlesticks and a glass candlelamp with a tarnished silver reflecter behind it. She carried it out and set it on the kitchen table. After she wiped the reflector with a soft cloth, buffed it as clean as she could, she rinsed off the glass, polished away dust, spider webs and insect droppings, then she pushed one of her candles onto the base and lit it at the firehole, let it burn a moment before she set the chimney back over it. It put out a soft yellow glow that pushed back the shadows and gave a golden life to the kitchen that warmed her heart as well as her body.

She took the lamp into the bedroom where she laid a new fire and used the sparker to get it started. The ash was beginning to build up beneath the dogs. She should have cleared it away before starting a new fire, but the room was growing too chill for comfort. Tomorrow morning, she told herself. I'll clear the grate tomorrow morning. She watched the fire start to glow and snap and thought about going to bed, getting an early start on the cleaning in the morning, but she wasn't sleepy and there was such a lot of work to do.

She went back in the kitchen, scooped up a dollop of soap and dumped it into the bucket, following that with the last of the hot water, set another pot to heat for later, tucked one of the worn brooms under her arm, picked up the bucket and the lamp and went around through the bedroom, the foyer, stood a moment in the vestiary wondering where to start, then went through into the great chamber, the Maiden Chamber.

She set the lamp against the wall under the window. Floor first, she thought. An icy draft coiled round her ankles. No. Fire first.

When the fire began to crackle and add its light to the candle lamp's, she stood in the center of the room and looked around at the sorry desolation where once there'd been dignity and beauty. She went to her knees, knelt without moving, sick with memory and with the sudden realization that the anger she was feeling now at the vandals was only another face of the anger that had driven her to turn against her own blood. Forgive yourself,
She
said. It's easier to forgive them. She sighed and opened her eyes, got stiffly to her feet.

Humming the chants she could remember so she wouldn't remember more troubling things, she began sweeping up the debris that cluttered the floor, leaves, fragments of stone, bottle shards, the ruins of the tapestries, a year's worth of dust and dead bugs.

She fetched the rags and pumice stones she'd forgotten and began cleaning the floor, slopping soapy water onto the tiles, using rags to wash away old urine and feces, the clotted dust, not trying to deal yet with the paint. Handspan by handspan she removed the filth from the mosaic tiles, changing the water several times before she finished. Then, with pumice and scraper she attacked the thick paint, the smears and splatters, the glyphs of obscene words, humming to herself as she worked, the humming just a pleasure now, no longer a barrier to thought. She wasn't angry any longer. She was too busy to be angry, attacking a tiny patch of floor at a time, trying not to harm the glaze on the tiles, in no hurry at all, happy when she got a single tile cleaned off, contented at spending hours, days, perhaps a full passage on a task she'd have screamed at a while before. She took little note of the passing of time until the growing chill and darkness in the room reminded her that there were other things she had to do and many days to finish the work.

She sat on her heels and stretched, working her back and shoulders, wriggling her fingers. The fire was a faint red glow nearly smothered in gray ash. The candle was a stub hardly a finger-width high. It was totally dark outside, the colored rounds of window glass turned to different shades of black. She looked at the cleaned tiles with satisfaction, their bright colors winking at her in the dying light. She'd cleared off a space as long and as wide as she was tall. Setting the worn pumice stone against the wall, the scraper beside it, she got to her feet, plucking at the skirt of her robe which was damp and heavy against her legs.

Taking the lamp and firestriker with her, she left the Maiden Chamber. The foyer was an icebox, but the bedroom was toasty warm though the fire had burned low. She put on a few sticks of wood, waited until they caught, added more wood and left a cheerful crackle behind as she went into the kitchen. After blowing the coals to life in the firebox, she set water to heat for cha, cut several slices of bread, laid thin slices from the posser haunch on them, topped the whole with slivers of cheese, set these concoctions on the bricks to melt, washed the dust off one of the Keeper's plates and put a new candle in the lamp. When the cheese had melted into the bread and meat and the water was boiling, she assembled her meal, sat at the kitchen table, almost purring with contentment, sang the blessings and began her solitary supper.

When she woke, early the next morning, her lye-burnt, abraded hands had healed as her bruises and chilblains had before. She sang the praises of the Maiden, made a hasty breakfast and went back to work on the Maiden Chamber.

The days that followed were much the same. Hard monotonous physical labor all day, meager monotonous meals morning and night. By the end of the first tenday the cheese was a pile of wax and cloth rinds, the jam was getting low, the posser haunch was close to the bone and she was eating water-flour cakes baked on the bricks, the withered tubers with the rotted spots cut away and slow-baked all day at the hearth of her bedroom fire. At night she slept hard and dreamlessly. When she wasn't scrubbing, she struggled to reconstruct from memory what she knew of the Keeper Songs and the Order of the Year. How little she did know troubled her at times but mostly she was too busy to fuss.

By the end of that tenday the Great Clean was all but finished. All the sacred rooms were in order and shining with her efforts. But the unguent vessels and oil vessels were broken, the oils and unguents missing; the tapestries were destroyed, the formal robes of the Keeper were gone. The Maiden Chamber was bare. The face carved into the Eastwall was so plowed with gouges and battered it gave her a pain in her heart to look at it, but on the eleventh day she did just that. She stood in the middle of the room, hands on hips, and gazed at the ruined face. “Could I?”

Scent of herbs and flowers.

“Oh, you think so, mmmm? Then I'd better try.” She went up to the stone, touched the face, ran her fingers over the few unmarred bits, trying to get the feel of the stone into her hands. “At least I can smooth this out so it isn't quite so dreadful a scar and I can learn something about the tools and the stone while I'm at it. After that, well, we'll see.”

She left the room, frowning and walking slowly, trying to remember what tools she'd seen stacked up on shelves at the far end of the pantry. A mallet she was sure of, an axe, but that wouldn't be much help until she needed firewood, chisels? She stepped into the foyer, pulled the door shut behind her.

A heavy knock on the outer door caught her in mid-stride. She stared at it open-mouthed, shocked and frightened. A second knock. She stood with her hands crossed above her breasts, her arms pressing hard against her torso. In a way she'd forgotten that there was a world outside the Shrine. All her life, as long as she could remember, she'd been surrounded by people. Surrounded by family and ties and bitter with loneliness. From the moment she'd crossed the threshold here, she'd been utterly alone and for the first time was not lonely at all. She felt a flash of resentment at the person who was shattering this calming, comforting solitude, recognized the feeling and shoved desperately at it. She didn't
want
to feel like that anymore, she was furious at herself for entertaining the feeling. She was falling apart, falling back into the tense, angry, resentful Nilis she was trying to escape. Escape? There was none. Forgive yourself. Forgive myself. Forgive. Forgive. No new starts, no changes, the same soul. Live with it. Forgive yourself for being who and what you are. It was a litany, a prayer. The thudding of her heart slowed, her hands unclenched, her breathing slowed, steadied. She looked down at herself, smiled tremulously, tugged the filthy hem down so it hid her dirty bare feet. Walking on the sides of her feet, toes curled up from the icy flags, she crossed the room, took the bar down and shoved the door open.