Gathering Blue (11 page)

Kira wrinkled her nose, remembering. "What a smell," she said. "But, Thomas —"

He waited for her question. Tonight for dinner they had been brought meat in a thick sauce. Beside it on the plate were some small roasted potatoes.

Kira pointed at the meat on her own plate. "
This
is what the hunters brought. It's hare, I think."

He nodded, agreeing.

"Everything the hunters brought in was like this. Wild rabbit. Some birds. There wasn't anything, well, anything very large."

"There were deer. I saw two at the butcher's."

"But deer are gentle, frightened things. The hunters bring nothing with claws or fangs. They never catch anything that could be called a beast."

Thomas shuddered. "Lucky. A beast could kill."

Kira thought of her father. Taken by beasts.

"Annabella says there be none," she confided.

"Be none?" Thomas looked puzzled.

"That's the way she said it. 'There be no beasts.'"

"She speaks like Matt?" Thomas had not met the old dyer.

Kira nodded. "A bit. Perhaps she grew up in the Fen."

They ate in silence for a moment. Finally Kira asked again. "So you've never seen a real beast?"

"No," Thomas acknowledged.

"But probably you know someone who has."

He thought for a moment and then shook his head. "Do you?" he asked.

Kira looked at the table. It had always been hard to talk of it, even to her mother. "My father was taken by beasts," she told him.

"You saw it?" His voice was shocked.

"No. I was not yet born."

"Your mother saw?"

She tried to remember her mother's telling. "No. She didn't. He went on the hunt. Everyone says that he was a fine hunter. But he didn't return. They came to my mother with the news, that he'd been attacked and taken by beasts on the hunt."

She looked at him, puzzled. "Yet Annabella says there be none."

"How could she know?" Thomas asked skeptically.

"She's four syllables, Thomas. Those who live to four syllables know all there is."

Thomas nodded in agreement, then yawned. He had been working hard all day. His tools still lay on the worktable: small chisels with which he had been meticulously recarving, reshaping the worn, smooth places on the elaborate staff that the Singer used. It was painstaking work that allowed for no error. Thomas had told her that often his head ached and he had to stop again and again to rest his eyes.

"I'll go so you can rest," Kira told him. "I must put away my own work before bed."

She returned to her room at the other end of the corridor and folded the robe that still lay on her table. She had worked on the stitchery throughout the afternoon, after her return from the forest. She had shown it to Jamison as she did each day, and he had nodded in approval. Now Kira was tired too. The long walks to the dyer's cott each day were exhausting, but at the same time the fresh air made her feel cleansed and invigorated. Thomas should get outside more, she thought, and then laughed to herself; she sounded like a scolding mother.

After a bath — how she enjoyed the warm water now! —Kira put on the simple nightgown that was provided clean for her each day. Then she went to the carved box and took the scrap of fabric with her to her bed. The fear of the thing in the bushes by the path lingered with her still, and she thought of it as she waited for sleep.

Is it true, that there be no beasts?
Her thoughts framed the question, and her mind responded in a whisper to herself as the fabric lay curled warm in the palm of her hand.

There be none.

What of my father, then, him taken by beasts?
Kira drifted into sleep, the words gliding slippery from her thoughts. She dreamed the question, her breath soft and even against the pillow.

The fabric gave a kind of answer but it was no more than a flutter, like a breeze across her that she would not remember when she woke at dawn. The scrap told her something of her father — something important, something that mattered — but the knowledge entered her sleep, trembling through like a dream, and in the morning she did not know that it was there at all.

When the bell for rising rang, Kira awoke with a sense that something had changed: she had an awareness of a difference, but had forgotten what the difference was. She sat for a moment on the edge of her bed, thinking. But she could not grasp whatever it was and finally stopped trying. Sometimes, she knew, lost memories and forgotten dreams came back more easily if you put them out of your mind.

Outside, it was stormy. Wind shook the trees and blew a sheet of heavy rain against the building. The hard ground below had turned to mud overnight, and it was clear that Kira would not go to the dyer's cott today. Just as well, she thought; there was much work to do on the robe, and autumn-start, the time of the Gathering, was approaching. Recently Jamison had been stopping by sometimes twice a day to see the progress she had made. He seemed pleased by her work.

"Here," he had said to her just the day before yesterday, smoothing his hand across the large underrated place, "is where you will start your own work. After this year's Gathering, after you've finished with the restoration, you'll have this entire section to work on for years to come."

Kira touched the place where his hand lay. She tried to determine whether her fingers would feel the magic there. But there was only emptiness. There was a feeling of unfilled need.

He seemed to sense her uncertainty and reassured her. "Don't worry," he said. "We will explain to you what we want pictured there."

Kira didn't reply. His reassurance troubled her. It wouldn't be instruction that she needed, it would be the magic to come to her hands.

Remembering the conversation, Kira thought suddenly,
Jamison! I can ask him about the beasts!
He had told her that he had been part of the hunt that day, that he had seen her father's death.

And maybe she would ask Matt too. Wild little thing that he was, Kira had no doubt that Matt had crossed the boundaries often and had gone to places tykes were not supposed to go. She laughed quietly, thinking of Matt and his mischief. He spied on everything, knew everything. Had she and Thomas not stopped him, he would have tagged along with the men on the hunt and put himself in danger. Perhaps he had done it before.

Perhaps he had seen beasts.

When the tender came with the morning meal, Kira asked that the lights be lit. The rainstorm made the room dim, even beside the window where she sat to work. Finally she settled herself with the outspread robe and placed the frame around the newest section waiting to be repaired. As she had often done, she followed with her eyes and fingers the complex story of the world portrayed on the robe: the starting point, long mended now, with the green water, the dark beasts on its shore, and the men bloodied by the hunt. Beyond, villages appeared, with dwellings of all kinds; curving stitches of smoke from fires were threaded with dull purplish grays. It was fortunate that it needed no repair because Kira had no threads to match. She thought they had been dyed with basil and Annabella had told her how difficult the basil was and how badly it stained your hands.

Then complex, whirling patches of fire: oranges, reds, yellows. Here and there on the robe these fires appeared, a repetitive pattern of ruin, and within the intricately stitched patterns of the bright destructive threads of fire, Kira could see figures of humans portrayed: people destroyed, their tiny villages crumbling, and later even larger, much more splendid towns burned and ravished by fiery destruction. In some places on the robe there was a feeling of entire worlds ending. Yet always there would emerge, nearby, new growth. New people.

Ruin. Rebuilding. Ruin again. Regrowth. Kira followed the scenes with her hand as larger and greater cities appeared and larger, greater destruction took place. The cycle was so regular that its pattern took on a clear form: an up-and-down movement, wavelike. From the tiny corner where it began, where the first ruin came, it enlarged upon itself. The fires grew as the villages grew. All of them were still tiny, created from the smallest stitches and combinations of stitches, but she could see their pattern of growth and how each time the ruin was worse and the rebuilding more difficult.

But the sections of serenity were exquisite. Miniature flowers of countless hues flourished in meadows streaked with golden-threaded sunlight. Human figures embraced. The pattern of the peaceful times felt immensely tranquil compared to the tortured chaos of the others.

Tracing with her finger the white and pink-tinged clouds against pale skies of gray or green, Kira wished again for blue. The color of calm. What was it Annabella had said? That they had blue yonder? What did that mean? Who were
they?
And where was
yonder?

More unanswered questions.

Great sheets of rain spattered against the window, distracting her. Kira sighed and watched the trees bend and sway in the wind. Thunder muttered in the distance.

She wondered where Matt was, what he was doing in this weather. She knew that ordinary people — those who lived near the place where she and her mother had shared their cott — would be indoors today, the men sullen and edgy, the women complaining loudly because weather kept them from their usual chores. Tykes, confined, would be fighting and then wailing in response to swift backhanded slaps from their mothers.

Her own life with her soft-spoken widowed mother had been different. But it had set her apart too and made others, like Vandara, hostile.

"Kira?" She heard Thomas's voice and his knock at her door.

"Come in."

He came and stood by her window, eyeing the rain. "I was just wondering what Matt's up to in this weather," Kira said.

Thomas began to laugh. "Well, I can answer that. He's up to finishing my breakfast. He arrived early this morning, dripping wet. He said his mother threw him out because he was noisy and troublesome. I think he just wanted breakfast though."

"Branch too?"

"Branch too. Of course."

As if in response, they heard the tap-tapping of the dog's feet in the corridor; then Branch appeared in the doorway, his head cocked, ears up, bent tail wagging exuberantly. Kira knelt and scratched behind his ear.

"Kira?" Thomas was still staring through the window at the rain.

"Hmmm?" She looked up from the dog.

"I heard it again in the night. I'm certain of it this time. The sound of a child crying. It seemed to come from the floor below."

She looked at him and saw that he was concerned. "I wonder, Kira," he said hesitantly, "would you go with me? To explore a bit? I suppose it could be just the sound of wind."

It was true that outside the wind was relentless. Tree branches lashed the side of the building and torn leaves whirled away. The sound of the storm, however, was nothing like the sound of a crying child.

"Maybe an animal?" Kira suggested. "I've heard cats yowling so that they sound like babies with colicky bellies."

"Cats?" Thomas repeated dubiously. "Well, maybe."

"Or a young goat? They make a crying sound."

Thomas shook his head. "It wasn't a goat."

"Well, no one ever said we couldn't explore," Kira commented. "Not to me, anyway."

"Nor me."

"All right, then, I'll go with you. The light's not good for working this morning anyway." She stood. Branch wriggled with anticipation. "What about Matt? I suppose we should take him along."

"Take me where?" Matt appeared in the doorway, damp-haired and barefoot with crumbs on his chin, jam on the edges of his mouth, and wearing a too-large woven shirt belonging to Thomas. "Shall we be having an adventure?"

"Matt?" Kira remembered her intention to ask him. "Have you ever seen a beast? A real one?"

Matt's face lighted. "Billions and billions." He made a beast face, teeth exposed. He roared and his dog jumped away from him in alarm.

Kira rolled her eyes and looked at Thomas.

"Here, Branchie." Matt, his beast disguise abandoned, squatted beside the dog, who came forward and sniffed him. "Some smearies for you." He grinned as the dog licked breakfast remains from his face.

"Yes, we'll have ourselves an adventure," Kira told him. She laid the protective cover over the robe. "We thought we'd explore a bit. We've never been on the floor below this one."

Matt eyes widened in delight at the idea of an exploration.

"I heard a noise last night," Thomas explained. "Probably nothing, but we thought we'd go take a look."

"Noise don't never be
nothing,
" Matt pointed out. Quite rightly, Kira thought.

"Well, it's probably nothing important," Thomas amended.

"But maybe it be interesting!" Matt said eagerly.

Together, followed by the dog, the three started down the corridor toward the stairs.

Usually Branch scampered eagerly back and forth, leading the way, then circling back. This morning he was more cautious and followed behind. The thunder was still grumbling outside, and the hallway was dimly lighted. Thomas led the way. The dog's toenails clicked on the tiles. Matt's bare feet moved silently beside him, and the only other sounds were Kira's walking stick, which made a muted thump with each step, and the dragging of her twisted leg.

Like the floor above, where they lived, this was simply an empty corridor lined with closed wooden doors.

Thomas turned a corner. Then he jumped back as if he had been startled by something. The others, even the dog, froze.

"Shhhh." Thomas gestured for silence with his finger to his mouth.

Ahead, around the corner, they heard footsteps. Then a knock, the opening of a door, and a voice. The voice and the inflection of the words — though the words themselves were not clear — sounded familiar to Kira.

"It's Jamison," she mouthed silently to Thomas. He nodded, agreeing, and peered around the corner.

It occurred to Kira that Jamison had been her defender, had been the one responsible for her being here at all in this new life. So there was really no reason to huddle here in the dim hallway, hiding from him. Yet she was oddly fearful.