The Shore of Women (31 page)

ARVIL

Narid did not frighten me with his talk about how few men returned from the east. Birana and I could not return, whatever happened. But I was worried about his story of what had befallen his band. Ilf had said that the men of the lake would not harm strangers, but Narid knew more about them than Ilf had, and he feared them. I told myself that Narid’s band had not gone to the lake in peace, that they had brought their deaths upon themselves. I thought of the vision and what it might mean, of Birana’s hope for a refuge.

“What shall we do?” Birana asked as we left the shrine.

“You must say what we are to do. Will you risk traveling to this lake? Perhaps one of your kind appeared there, and perhaps those men know where you might find safety, or it may be only a tale with little truth.”

“I know one thing,” she said, as she carried her belongings to Flame. “Any refuge I can reach would lie somewhere to the east. We’ll have to go on.”

I touched her arm lightly. I had not come so close to her for the past days. I kept my hand on her. She did not pull away, and then I remembered what she had said, that my desire for her would bring her suffering and death. My hand dropped. “I haven’t heard how you reached a truce with Narid, though he said you spoke bravely.”

I tried not to smile when she spoke of how she had stood up to his threats, of how she had dared him to kill her outside the shrine. “He was all bluff and arrogance,” she finished.

I grew solemn then. “He was not, Birana. He could have followed his threats with deeds, while you couldn’t. It may be all that saved you from him was his weariness and not your brave words. Brave as you were, you risked too much.”

“Even if he had killed me, you would have been safe. He would have seen what I was, and then he would have been no match for you. He would have thought himself cursed; he might have welcomed his death then.”

I stepped closer to her. “You think so much of me, to save me in that way?”

“I couldn’t… without your help, I wouldn’t have lived long anyway.” She looked away before she mounted Flame, and I knew that she had left other words unsaid. My heart leaped.

We came that evening to rolling land where high grass grew and where the trees to the east stood with much grassland around them. Birana fetched kindling from the edge of the wood while I found stones to set around the fire. What Narid had revealed of this land in his rambling way had told me that we did not need to fear men, and the fire would keep other creatures away.

The air was cold again, and we put on our sheepskin coats. With wood and my old coat, I set up a shelter above us, then stretched out on the ground. Birana crawled out and began to lie down a few paces away.

“I didn’t make this shelter only for myself,” I said.

“I can sleep here.”

“The night grows colder. We would be warmer if we lay together.”

She sat up. “No.”

“Do you think I forgot what you have told me? I want only warmth, no more.”

She came back and lay down next to me. I moved toward her until my chest was against her back. She tensed, but did not push me away. I put one arm across her, around her waist, over her coat.

She did not protest but accepted this. My soul sang with that triumph, and then it came to me that there might be caresses we could share while I kept my seed from entering her. My member hardened as I thought of the touch of the spirit-women, of how their hands had stroked me, of how mine had roamed over their bodies. It was my joining with her that would bring her harm, not my touch.

It was hard for me to put such thoughts from my mind. It might be even harder for me to resist joining with her if I shared more with her. I steadied myself, and at last my weariness brought me sleep.

As we rode, I pointed out plants to Birana and told her which ones could be eaten. I discovered that pokeweeds and dandelions were plants Birana had once scorned.

“When we find such things in the city,” she said, “and we still do sometimes, those who garden pull them out and throw them away.” I was struck by that, the notion of her kind throwing away plants that could feed them. Their magic seemed to grow greater, the more I knew of them, while they themselves grew less fearsome. Only their magic gave them strength—that, and the power they held over life.

Birana’s eyes grew sadder as she spoke of the enclave. Whatever I had awakened toward me in her soul, she would have forgotten if she could have returned to her home. She sought a refuge. I wondered if there would be a refuge for me without her. Perhaps if she found one, I would not be welcome in it.

We could have remained in the land where we rode. I could reach an understanding with Narid’s band, one that would allow us to dwell apart from them so that they did not discover Birana’s true nature. I could convince him that my band, who lived only in my false words, would not follow us east, and he would be pleased that we had turned from seeking that which was unholy. With our horses, we could aid his band and the other they sometimes joined, and I could teach Birana how to hunt and track. This land was nearly empty of men. We would be as safe here as anywhere. This might be as much of a refuge as we would find.

I dreamed of this but did not speak of it to Birana. I feared that, if she believed there were no other refuge but this, she might lose the will to live. We would have to go to the lake, whatever that quest brought us.

I counted the days as we rode, and by the seventh, we had still seen no sign of the lake. But we had come to a land of more trees and, as Narid had told us, giant oaks stood among the towering pines. The days had grown colder, as they will in the spring before the warmth of summer drives the spell of the north away, and from time to time, the clouds released their rain.

A wind would blow, and the trees would release their seeds, undulating as the wind stirred their limbs. Their seeds dropped around us, to lie on the ground and take root. Since hearing of the truth from Birana, I saw these trees with new eyes. A story Narid had told came to me.

The first tree, at the beginning of Earth, had sprouted and grown tall. At the sight of the land under his roots, the tree grew hard with desire. The spirit of Earth and the Lady caressed him, and Her land welcomed his roots and made him long for Her so greatly that bark grew around him and kept him stiff. A passion filled the tree, and his first seeds fell, to be borne away by the wind, but as boys are given to men by the Lady, so other trees rose around the first and became his band.

Earth accepted the seed of the trees, as the females of other creatures accepted the seed of their males. But men, by doing evil, had cast their seed carelessly and had lost it in ancient times. No new life came from us, for that was part of our punishment, but in a forest far away, Narid said, the first tree waits, still spilling its seed, and when men have moved closer to redemption, the seeds of the first tree will fall upon them and restore their own seed.

Narid had seen nothing more in this story than that trees, like the creatures around us, were yet another sign of what we had lost. But now, as the oaks stirred above Birana and me, I saw them as a sign of what I still was. Men had their seed still, and Birana’s kind took it from us. The limbs fluttering overhead brought images of men dancing before other men whom they loved, of ghostly aspects beckoning to a man. Women had not robbed us of our seed but had hidden theirs from us.

All these thoughts only aroused me more, and I would have nothing from Birana but the warmth of her body while I slept. I kept my eyes on the ground, away from the limbs above.

At last we began to see the signs of men.

By a stream running through the wood, I saw that men had dug for roots and gathered plants there. Birana peered at her compass, and we rode on. Soon we were on a trail winding among the trees, a place where men had walked. We did not ride along the trail but kept it in sight as we continued east, concealing ourselves among the trees.

As we rode, I seemed to feel eyes upon me; yet, when I looked around, I saw no one. I was sure we were being watched but heard no sound except the birds.

“I come in peace,” I called out in the holy speech. Birana looked at me, startled, for she, it seemed, had sensed nothing. “We mean no harm. I swear it to you in the Lady’s name.” We moved back to the trail and rode along it. If men were watching, it would be useless to hide from them now.

Then we came to a place along the trail where stumps of trees stood among others that still lived, and where bark had been stripped from other trees. I sniffed the air and knew we were near water.

“I come in peace,” I cried again.

An arrow flew past and struck a tree in front of us. Flame reared as Birana clung to her reins.

“Hold!” a voice shouted in the holy speech before I could act. This man was hidden by the trees but seemed to be above us.

“You two are alone?” another voice called out from behind me.

“We are alone,” I answered, “and we come in peace. I swear it to you.”

“If that is so,” the first voice said, “then cast down all the weapons you carry and drop to the ground from the beasts that carry you. If you do not, you will die here.” The holy speech sounded strange in this man’s mouth. I recalled what Birana had told me, that the holy speech was different in other places. This man drew out his words and then bit them off at the end.

We had to obey. Birana and I threw down our spears and the knives we carried, then dismounted. I tensed as I waited for the other arrows to fly. A small pouch dropped past my face. I picked it up, opened it, and saw a small piece of dried fish. They would not be offering us food if they intended to kill us.

“Lead your beasts on along this trail,” the first voice said. “Remember that you will feel the wrath of all our band if you harbor evil intentions toward us.”

We led the horses forward. As we walked, I heard the men drop to the ground behind us but dared not turn. Ahead of us, more trees had been stripped of bark and more stumps stood on the land. I had never seen land so marked by men, and wondered how many could be in this band. I was feeling our helplessness. The men had made the gesture of offering us food but had not promised a truce.

Soon we came to a place where many trees had been felled, and I saw a long, low wall of dirt and stone. Beyond lay the lake, so wide it seemed to cover all of the horizon; I could see no shore to the east, where the lake met the sky. Ten men stood on the wall. Four held spears while the others, all with the beardless faces of boys, carried bows. Two of them stood on either side of a passage that led through the wall.

I turned. Two other men were behind us, carrying the weapons we had dropped. They were dark haired, without the beards of men, and nearly as tall as I. One of them pointed at the passage. “Enter our camp,” he ordered.

We led our horses through the wall, and I nearly gasped aloud when I saw what lay inside. The land had been cleared, and men were toiling among straight rows of plants, green shoots just beginning to sprout. A path led past these plants to dwellings, round structures built of the trunks of trees that stood upright on the ground. I looked at the men on the wall, at those working, at those who stood near the dwellings, and knew that this band was as large as Truthspeaker’s had been before the Lady destroyed it.

The two men carrying our weapons moved ahead of us, leading us to a wide clearing around which the dwellings stood. No fire burned at the center of the camp, but from openings in the roofs of the dwellings smoke was rising. One dwelling, smaller than the others, stood apart from them and nearer to the wall. I wondered who lived there, then looked toward the lake, where other men rode the water in two floating vessels made of wood and bark. Other vessels lay on the shore below.

This was the richest camp I had ever seen. The sight of the men and their strong bodies told me that they did not feel hunger even after the deprivations of the recent winter. This, I thought, might be why so few returned from the east; a man would not want to leave such wealth. But perhaps other travelers had also died here. These men might not want to share what they had.

We were led past the clearing to a place by the shore, below the dwellings. “You may rest here,” one of the men said. I now saw that even though he wore no beard, he was older than he had first seemed. “Make your camp here. You may take water from the lake and tie your beasts to the trees there. I’ll send my charge to tend to you.”

“We thank you for your kindness,” I said.

He held up my metal knife, studying the blade, then tossed it in front of us with our other weapons. “We leave you these. I don’t think you will be so foolish as to use them against anyone here.”

He and his companion left us and walked back up the gentle slope toward the dwellings. As I glanced around, I noticed that the wall surrounded this camp, stretching nearly to the shore at either end. We could not escape without being seen by the men there.

We watered the horses, then tethered them by the trees. By the time I had set up a shelter of sticks and draped Tal’s old coat and my own over them, a boy was making his way toward us, carrying a sack. He set the burden down, then bowed a little from the waist.

“Greetings,” he said. “I am called Tulan.” He squinted at me with his black eyes as he pulled out a basket woven of reeds from the sack. “Do you carry meat in your packs?”

I nodded.

“Then I shall leave you only these foods.” He took the top from the basket, then glanced at the horses. “I have heard of horses. Perhaps they will eat of this.” He pulled out a large clay pot and offered it to me. I lifted off its top and saw a watery mixture of grain.

“We thank you,” I said.

“It is nothing.”

Nothing, to give away food to strangers and to feed our horses as well? His generosity was making me uneasy. The boy sat down and, after a moment, we seated ourselves in front of him.

“You are very kind to strangers, Tulan,” I said.

“Those who are mighty and blessed can be kind.” He grinned, and there was assurance in his smile. “What are you called?”