The Shadow Matrix (71 page)

When she was down to her underdrawers, Margaret noticed she still had the silken mitt

on her right hand. The palm was slightly muddy, and where the left one had vanished

she could not remember. It did not seem to matter. It was too cold in the pantry to stand

around, so she took the white gown the woman offered, and slipped it over her head. It

was a thick woolen nightgown, clean smelling and soft. It fell in folds against her icy

skin, caressing her. Then she leaned against the wall and tugged off her boots. They

made a squelching noise, and she wiggled her toes in her hose. They were damp, but

not wet, so she decided to keep them on for the present. The state of the floor in the

kitchen was not inviting to bare feet.

Exhausted, she just leaned against the wall for a few minutes, breathing slowly, trying

to adjust to being comparatively warm, dry, and out of the inclement weather. After a

while, Margaret picked up her boots and the belt with its pouch, and went back into the

kitchen.

Stocking-footed, Margaret went through the great room. She passed by the oven, a

huge structure made of brick and tile, and was startled to find it was very hot. Its

welcome warmth penetrated into her bones as she went by, and her cheeks began to

feel almost hot.

After she had set her boots by the hearth, Margaret bent over Mikhail. His skin felt

warm, and his color was better, but he remained unconscious. For a moment she

considered trying to rouse him with her hand. Then she decided that would be very

stupid. Mikhail needed time to heal from matrix shock, and she was too tired to do

anything useful for him, no matter how much she wanted to.

But she needed something to keep herself busy, to keep her mind from fretting any

more than it already was. Margaret spotted a broom leaning against the corner. She

grabbled the handle and started sweeping. Her arm muscles protested, but she ignored

them. The regular rhythm soothed her mind, and after a time her fears began to ease as

well.

She worked her way down one side of the long table and across the end before her

strength ran out. She collapsed on the end of the closest bench, and shook all over. In

spite of the heat of the room, and her own exertions, she was cold all over. But it was

more than that. All the things she had endured came together, overwhelming her

completely. Tears spilled down her cheeks, and she choked back the sound of sobs,

swallowing the terrible noises that welled in her throat.

Margaret did not know how long she sat there, crying silently. A pair of rough hands

took the broom away at some point, and after a time she smelled something cooking.

Her mouth watered. Food. She snuffled and tried to stop crying, but only managed to

do so for a short time. Then it started all over again, leaving her feeling hollow with

hunger and shame at her own weakness.

The woman who had given her the nightgown came over with a small crockery bowl.

It was steaming and there was a faint smell of herbs as she handed it to Margaret. "You

just drink this, and it will put the heart back in you soon enough,
chiya."

"Thank you," she whispered. Margaret let the bowl sit-in her hands, feeling the blessed

warmth creep into her fingers. She lifted it to her lips and sipped, expecting something

nasty tasting and full of virtues. Instead, she got a pleasant mouthful of minty liquid,

sweetened with honey. It slid down her throat like silk, and she could feel the heat of

the drink enter her stomach and begin to ease her aching body. She had almost finished

the stuff when she realized that she had drunk it before, on the trail with Rafaella on

the trip to Neskaya. What had she called it—waytea? the main ingredient was

bitterroot, a strong stimulant. Honey and mountain mint were added to make it

drinkable, but it was still dreadful stuff.

The taste and the memory gave her a sense of connection to her friend. She wished

Rafaella could be with her now, and wondered what the Renunciate would have made

of these earlier members of her Order. Margaret was sure that Rafi would have enjoyed

meeting Damila and the others, and hoped that someday she would be able to tell her

about it.

The waytea jolted her mind, and Margaret began to quiver with alertness. She noticed

everything at once, a state she knew was a combination of exhaustion and the stuff in

her cup. She had a false sense of clarity, as anything

she looked at seemed brighter than normal. While she waited for the sensation to

diminish, she noticed that the table had been scrubbed clean, and a cloth was laid at the

other end of it. She smelled roasting birds, herbs, spices, woodsmoke, and her own

sweat in a pungent mixture. It was all rather overwhelming.

A woman was standing at the table across from her, pounding something in a large

bowl, pulling it back and forth, kneading some kind of dough. She caught a whiff of

soda from it, and smiled. A yeast bread would not be ready for hours, and her mouth

was already watering in anticipation. Margaret watched the woman flip the dough out

expertly onto a floured plate, and plunge her fingers into the gleaming mass. She

formed it into round loaves and walked over to the oven, put her hand into the opening

and nodded. Then she picked up a wooden- object, a long handle with a flattened

platform at the end, slipped it under the two loaves, and carried them to the oven. She

shoved the thing into the opening, wiggled the handle, and withdrew it, leaving the

shaped loaves behind.

The woman wiped her floury hands on the tops of her trousers. Then she hauled a

heavy bag onto the table, and poured out a mass of onions, golden carrots, and the

potatolike roots of which Margaret had become inordinately fond.

"Can I do anything to help?"

The Renunciate gave her a hard look for a moment. "Your hands steady enough to

handle a knife?"

"I don't know, but let me try. I don't think I am up to peeling, but chopping seems

almost possible."

That got a grin. "I am Jonil n'ha Elspeth, and I would be glad of a chopper. It will make

the work go quicker. Not that I mind it, but it always reminds me of my poor mother,

sitting by the fire, trying to make stew from one onion and some millet. She was

always tired, and there was never quite enough to eat."

Jonil pulled two knives from her waist, handed the longer one across the table, and

began expertly peeling the skins of the root vegetables. When she finished one, she

shoved it over to Margaret, and Margaret cut it into quarters, then made smaller pieces.

They worked in silence for a time, until there was quite a mound of cleaned and cut

vegetables

between them. Around them, the others were chatting quietly, laying out bedding, and

turning the room from a deserted kitchen into a livable place. The smell of cooking

pigeons mingled with the smoke, and the delightful scent of baking bread began to

drift from the oven.

"When I joined the Sisters," Jonil said quietly, "I thought I would never have to cook

again—because I wanted more than anything not to be like my poor mother." She gave

a snort of laughter. "Can't imagine what I was thinking of, since Sisters have to eat like

anyone else. I learned the sword, but I am not very clever with it, and so I have ended

up doing all the things I wanted to get away from. But I almost always have enough to

eat."

Margaret's eyes were watering from cutting onions, and she blinked away the tears.

She was still very tired, but the waytea made it possible to ignore it. Then she took the

cuff of the thick gown and wiped her eyes. She felt the heavy, cold touch of the

bracelet brush her cheek. It gave her a start, for she had forgotten it, and she glanced

down at the sparkling eyes of the beast for a second. "Yes, enough to eat is surely one

of life's pleasures."

"I never thought to be sitting at a table cutting up stew with a fine lady. We have had a

few come to us, but most of them were all but useless in the kitchen."

The woman called Karis came up with a cauldron, set it on the table, and began filling

it with the vegetables. She worked slowly, and Margaret did not need to be a telepath

to know that both of these women were very curious about her, and about Mik, and

were just too polite to pry openly. She realized she had not even told them her name,

and that they had not asked it either.

She started to introduce herself, then stopped. .What should she call herself?

Margarethe of Windhaven, the woman she resembled closely enough to have fooled

Ro-bard MacDenis, was dead. She held back a shiver. She did not want to be anyone

but herself, let alone a dead person. More, she had a deep certainty that she must speak

with care. She was out of her own time, and the less she said, the better. What she

needed Was a nice, fairly innocuous name, something almost anonymous. She needed

to be a Jane Doe or Mary Smith, and her tired brain was not cooperating.

At last she said, "I am called Marja . . . Leynier." There
were
Leyniers in her bloodline,

but the falsehood made her tense a little. And retreating into the nickname she had not

used in years felt a little peculiar as well.

"Marja—now that is one I never heard before," Jonil answered cheerfully. "Right

pretty, like its bearer."

Margaret laughed at that. "Pretty! I feel like a drowned rat."

"You looked like one, at first,
domna."
Both of the women chuckled at Joris' remark.

Karis picked up the cauldron and hauled it over to the fireplace. Margaret saw her add

some water from a wooden bucket, then drop in some chunks of dried meat as well,

and set it on a hook above the flames. Jonil glanced over her shoulder. "I better go see

to the seasonings, or Karis will put in handfuls of pepperpods, and it will be too spicy

to eat. She is a good woman, but she can't be trusted with flavor. If she were a singer,

I'd say she was tone deaf." With that Jonil rose and walked over to the fireplace,

leaving Margaret to stare at the pile of peelings.

There was an end of a carrot in the pile, and she picked it up and crunched it. It was

tough and woody, but it still had a slight sweetness, and the taste of earth as well.

Margaret chewed and chewed, until her jaw ached slightly, and finally swallowed.

Damila came and .sat down across from her. She gave her close-cropped hair a finger

combing. "Your husband seems to be just sleeping now, but I think he may throw a

fever before the night is over. Vanda is brewing up some feverwort, just in case. It is

best drunk cold, so we need to make it up now." She paused, looked uncomfortable,

and cleared her throat. "How did you end up ... under that tree?"

"I am not sure," Margaret temporized. "Everything is very hazy."

"Well, how did he get matrix shock?"

"He touched something. . . ." That was true as far as it went, and Margaret decided not

to elaborate. She tried to look stupid, and wished that Damila would stop asking

questions. It crossed her mind that she had the capacity to compel the woman to leave

her alone, and shuddered at the idea.

Fortunately, Damila appeared to think her shiver was perfectly normal. "What was it?"

"I think it was a trap-matrix, but I am not sure. It affected me as well. There was a

blaze of light, and that is all I really remember." She felt her face pale, and was amazed

that she could fib without blushing.

"Ah, well, that explains it. That Varzil Ridenow, the Lord of Mali, has been trying to

find all of them, and destroy them, but there are so many, in old houses and other

places. And his hunting days are over. He's been in the
rhu fead
for more than a month,

lying in state, I suppose, though no one has come to see him. That's the rumor, anyhow.

One of them. Another says he is already gone, and then there are those who insist he is

in hiding, and not in the
rhu fead
at all. I don't know what to believe. All I am sure of is

that the Compact is tottering like some old gaffer, on its last legs. That is good for us,

because it means a lot of lords are looking for fighters, even women. As if we hadn't

enough of that." Damila hesitated. "You are not telling me everything, are you?"

Margaret hardly heard her, because she was trying to remember what the
rhu fead
was.

At last her weary brain coughed up the answer, and she recalled that this was the name

of some sort of chapel, near Hali Tower, a place of power. That made a strange kind of

sense, because Varzil had brought them to Hali. But why had they ended up going off

to that imaginary house? She was not sure why, but it was very important, and she

wished Mikhail was awake to question.

"No, I am not telling you everything, and I am sorry about that." She shrugged slightly.

"I don't think you would believe me if I did."

Damila nodded. "You and the man, you are not from around here, are you?"

Margaret found herself laughing almost hysterically. Several of the Sisters turned and

stared at her. "You could say that, Damila. You could definitely say that!" When she