The Warrior's Path (23 page)

When I handed Maara her bowl, I said, “Are we hiding from Vintel?”

She laughed. “Not exactly.”

Maara finished first and set her bowl aside. My eyes had been bigger than my stomach, and I’d taken more than I could eat. I offered her what was left of mine. She smiled at me and took the bowl.

“I’ll never be hungry again,” she said, “as long as you’re around.”

Her words both pleased and pained me. In a teasing way, she was thanking me for taking care of her, but her words cast a dark shadow. I heard in them that she had been hungry in a way I’d never been, and I was sorry it was so.

My face must have shown her what I was feeling.

“What’s troubling you?” she asked.

I shrugged, reluctant to tell her the truth. No one wants to hear that she inspires pity.

“Are you still worried about Vintel?”

I nodded, glad that she had provided me with another answer to her question. In truth, several things still puzzled me.

“Do you truly believe I was right to resist her?”

“What do you think would have happened if you’d given in?”

“I thought that if I made a gesture to satisfy her pride, she would stop being angry with me.”

“Most people would be satisfied with such a gesture,” Maara said, “but I think that to Vintel it would have been a sign of weakness.” She propped her elbows on her knees, rested her chin on her hands, and gazed at me. “What if I had handed her your brooch and promised to punish you for stealing it? That ought to have satisfied her pride.”

The thought horrified me. I couldn’t imagine her doing such a thing. It would have hurt my trust in her, no matter her intentions. She saw in my face what I thought of the idea.

“If I had given her the brooch,” she said, “the gesture would have been more than just a sign of weakness to Vintel. It would truly have weakened us, because to you it would have been a betrayal.”

I nodded that I understood.

“And if you had given her the brooch,” she said, “the gesture would have weakened you, because that would also have been a betrayal. It would have been a betrayal of yourself. I think that’s what your anger was telling you. Sometimes the ability to make such a gesture is a sign of strength and making it can make you stronger. But not this time.”

I wondered then why she hadn’t questioned me about the brooch.

“Why didn’t you ask me where I got it?”

“I didn’t need to,” she replied. “I knew you didn’t steal it, and Vintel would have enjoyed watching me question you about it. Instead I showed her that I would defend you, whether or not you’d done something wrong. She knew I hadn’t given you the brooch. She knew I had no idea how you came by it. Now she knows I’ll stand by you. And now you know it too.”

“I never doubted it,” I said.

Maara smiled. “Looking back on it, I think we’ve done well today.”

I had a different opinion.

“It seems to me that things have gone from bad to worse,” I said. “Now Vintel is our enemy. Now she has another grievance against us.”

“Vintel has always been my enemy. At least now her hatred is out in the open.”

“But why does she hate you for something she did? She owes you an apology for what she did.”

“Vintel hates me for who I am,” she said. “What she did came from her hatred. But what she did was wrong, and she believes she’ll lose face if she admits it. She’s right. It’s too late now to admit to what she did. Now she has to live with it, and the sight of me can only remind her of her own cowardice.”

Maara’s words frightened me. She was telling me that Merin’s house would be dangerous for her as long as Vintel was in it. It had never occurred to me that I might be endangering her by keeping her with me. I felt I had been very selfish.

“The Lady was right,” I said. “I should have let you go.”

For the first time that day my warrior was angry with me. “Have I no will of my own?”

“Of course you do, but I never thought about how dangerous this place still is for you.”

“All the world is dangerous for me,” she said. “At least here I have a friend or two.”

That made me feel a little better, but there was something I needed to hear her say. “Will you tell me again that this is what you wanted?”

She sighed. “If I do, will you never ask me again?”

I nodded.

“I regret nothing,” she said. “And I hope you never have cause to regret your choice.”

“What have I to regret? I have what I wanted.”

“Today you stood with me against Vintel. She won’t forget it. Vintel is something you will have to learn to live with.”

An idea came to me. “Maybe I should put the brooch away, so that it won’t be a reminder to Vintel.”

Maara shook her head. “If you put it away, it will seem as if you’re trying to hide it from her, as if you are truly guilty of the theft.” She thought for a moment. “I have a better idea.”

She got up, took her heavy cloak from its peg, and put it on.

“Give me the brooch,” she said.

I took it from my belt and gave it to her, and she used it to fasten her cloak. It looked handsome against the dark green cloth.

“Put on something warm,” she said. “We’re going outside.”

Wind-blown rain rattled against the shutter.

“Outside?”

“Yes,” she said.

I put on a heavy tunic, and Maara handed me an old hood of hers to put over my head.

“We’re going to have to get you some winter clothes,” she said.

We went downstairs and out through the great hall. Although it was only midafternoon, it was almost dark outside. Black clouds loomed over us, and the cold rain stung our faces. Once we were outdoors, I meant to ask her what she had in mind, but the wind blew my words away.

I followed Maara through the maze of earthworks and down the hill. The wind blew right through the fabric of my trousers. By the time we reached the river, my legs were numb. We took shelter by a tree whose bare branches couldn’t stop the rain, though the trunk broke the wind a bit.

“Where are we going?” I asked.

“This is far enough. We can go back now.”

“What are we doing?”

“We’re getting wet,” she said. “Now we’re going to go back to sit beside the fire and dry off. And we’re going to give everyone an opportunity to admire your brooch.”

“What about Vintel?”

“She’ll either challenge my right to it or she won’t. I doubt Vintel wants to take the matter any further, and she certainly doesn’t want to do it in public. But if she doesn’t challenge me, she will have missed her chance. Once people have seen me wearing it, they will remember the brooch as mine.”

We returned to the house and sat for the rest of the afternoon beside the hearth. Maara kept her cloak on. Even after it was dry and she began to be too warm, she only tossed it back over her shoulder, so that the brooch stayed in its place.

When people admired it, she told them it belonged to me.

Vintel came into the great hall for the evening meal. She saw us sitting by the hearth, and she could not have failed to see the brooch, but she ignored us, and she never said another word about it.

During the night the storm turned into a blizzard that lasted for a week. There was little else for the people of Merin’s house to do but huddle around the hearth in the great hall. The only thing that relieved our boredom was an occasional spat caused by our being so weary of one another’s company.

Maara didn’t like sitting in the crowded hall, but her room was too cold for anything but sleeping. The wind drove the snow in through the cracks in the shutter, and when we awoke in the mornings, our hair was stiff with frost. She would find us an inconspicuous place at the back of the hall, where we could have some peace and quiet.

It was impossible to avoid Vintel, although she hardly seemed to notice us. She treated us as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened between us. She was no more friendly with us than she had ever been, but she sometimes spoke to my warrior or to me in passing. I found it difficult to understand.

One thing had changed, and it was something that pleased me very much. The warriors who had once avoided Maara now began to seek her out. One or another of them would leave a warm place beside the hearth and join us. Some would stay only for a moment, just long enough to let her know that they accepted her as one of them. A few would sit with us through the long afternoons and talk with her as if they had known her all their lives. I imagine that it was most often curiosity that drew them to her. She was never talkative enough to satisfy them, but I hoped they would see that she was more like them than she was different.

On the fourth night of the blizzard, I awoke shivering in the middle of the night. I was sleeping in my clothes with the covers over my head, but it did no good. I couldn’t get warm. At last I got up, still wrapped in my blankets, thinking I might go downstairs and sleep by the warm ashes of the hearth. On the way I changed my mind and stopped by the companions’ loft. I felt my way over to where Sparrow slept, but her place was empty.

Someone whispered my name. I turned to see Taia open her blankets for me. I added my blankets to hers and lay down beside her. Soon I was warm enough to sleep.

In the early morning, as I was returning to Maara’s room, I saw someone at the far end of the upstairs hall. I wondered who else could be up so early. On such a cold morning, no one would be in any hurry to get out of a warm bed. I was curious enough to linger in the hallway until I could see who it was.

In the dim light I couldn’t see her face. I recognized Sparrow by the way she moved. I thought she might have been looking for me, so I waited for her. I expected her to stop and speak with me, but she brushed past me without a word. I caught only a brief glimpse of her face. She looked as if she had just played a clever trick on someone and was making her escape before her prank could be discovered. When I turned to speak to her, she put her finger to her lips and beckoned to me to follow her.

We went down to the kitchen. A few of the servants were already up, and the fires had been lit. Sparrow and I sat down in the warmest corner we could find. She was fully dressed, as I was, but it was still cold enough that we were glad to pull my blankets around our shoulders.

“Where were you last night?” I asked her. “I looked for you in the companions’ loft, but you weren’t there.”

“When was that?”

“I woke up freezing in the middle of the night. I went to see if you’d share blankets with me.”

“I’m sorry I missed you.” She sounded sorry.

Then she said, “I was with Vintel.”

I could hardly believe my ears. “Has Vintel accepted you?”

“Not yet, but I think I made a good impression.”

Sparrow saw my blank look, and her eyes twinkled with amusement.

“What an innocent you are,” she said.

I was too curious to be annoyed at her teasing.

“Tell me what you’re talking about,” I said, but before the words were out of my mouth, I understood that she had spent the night in Vintel’s bed.

“Oh,” I said.

I wasn’t innocent enough to believe that they had only been sharing blankets, or that what had happened between them had anything to do with love. It seemed at first glance not much different from what had happened between Sparrow and me, but at once I saw the difference. Sparrow and I loved each other, even though it was not the kind of love that lovers share. When I thought about her touching Vintel as she had touched me, I got a sour feeling in my stomach.

Sparrow understood, and her eyes grew cold. “When I’m a warrior, I will let my heart choose. Until then, necessity chooses for me. I learned many things in Arnet’s house, and if I must, I will use them all.”

I didn’t know what to say to her. Her words revealed her anger at her situation and her determination to improve it. I both admired her and pitied her, and I began to understand a little of the way life must feel to her. While I sometimes felt pushed in directions I didn’t want to take, I had always had the right to choose my own way in life. As the Lady said to me, I had the freedom to choose unwisely.

When I was younger, I sometimes wished that others would choose for me and relieve me of the responsibility, but Sparrow had fought all her life for every choice she’d been allowed to make, and many times it must have been only a choice of evils.

I took her hand in both of mine. “I understand,” I said.

She turned to look at me. “Yes, I think you do.”

She ran her fingers across my brow, to brush away the worry lines.

“It’s not as bad as all that,” she said.

As swiftly as it had come over her, her dark mood vanished. Once again mischief twinkled in her eyes. She seemed very pleased with herself.

“I do believe,” she said, “that I will soon be Vintel’s apprentice.”

Sparrow was right. Within a fortnight, Vintel accepted her. I thought about the night of my initiation and asked Sparrow if she would have an initiation with Vintel.

“I’ve already started on the warrior’s path,” she said. “That can happen only once. This time Vintel and I will go before the council. Vintel will announce her intention to apprentice me, and the Lady will give her consent.”

“That’s all?”

“Yes,” she said, “and for me it’s more than enough.”

I heard in her voice the relief she felt, that her future would no longer be in doubt.

“I wish you could have waited for the warriors who’ll be coming to Merin’s house in the spring,” I said. “I can’t imagine that none of them would take you.”

“And with them will come the girls to be fostered here. Vintel could have her pick of them.”

I understood. Sparrow was wise to secure her position with Vintel as soon as possible. I tried to set aside my misgivings.

At the next meeting of the council, Sparrow and Vintel were bound together. While I knew I should be happy that Sparrow had what she wanted, my heart refused to feel what I thought it should. I told myself that my concern was for Sparrow’s welfare and that it came from my own distrust of Vintel, but my warrior saw what I did not.

One morning a pale sun rose into a cloudless sky. Although the air was cold, the sunlight fooled us into feeling warmer than we were. Maara hurried me through breakfast so that we could go outdoors and enjoy the day. We went down by the river, but instead of going south along the riverbank, where people and animals had made a path through the snow, she turned north.