The Warrior's Path (28 page)

“How does a person learn self-control?” I asked.

“By making a habit of it. If a warrior has no self-control when she’s sitting quietly at home, how will she suddenly find it on the battlefield? Every day will give you another chance to learn.”

I began to feel a bit more hopeful. “How long will it take?”

“All your life.” She saw my dismay and smiled at me. “Don’t worry. By the time you become a warrior, you will have learned enough.”

“How can you be sure?”

“Because I intend to teach you. When I was learning self-control, my teacher was relentless. I intend to be just as relentless with you.”

“Who was your teacher?” I asked her.

“Life,” she said.

That morning Laris and Taia watched with us for an hour after sunrise. Early morning and late evening were the most important times to watch. In the morning chill, travelers would want the comfort of a fire, and in the evening they would need the firelight, as well as a hot supper. Fires were easy to see in the half-light of dawn and dusk. So were shadows. The rising and setting sun cast long shadows that could be seen even when the people who cast them were too far away to see.

During the day two people could keep the watch well enough. Laris and Taia went back down to the farmstead, leaving Maara and me behind. Cael and Alpin would come up the hill that evening. They would stay on the next day, and Laris and Taia would come up again to replace Maara and me. In that way, all the women would take it in turns to watch, with each pair of us spending two nights on the hilltop and one at the farmstead.

The men would not stand a watch. They were our strength, and they were to be always ready to confront any strangers who approached Merin’s land.

While we kept watch I had a lot of time to think. I understood why Maara had spoken to me about self-control. She had found me in tears for a reason that seemed foolish to me only a few hours later. Foolish or not, my anger and hurt feelings had caused me to make a dangerous mistake. If I hadn’t been so preoccupied, my attention would have been on the world around me, instead of on myself.

“How can I keep from having feelings?” I asked Maara, as we were eating our midday meal.

“You can’t,” she said. “And you shouldn’t.”

“But if I’m upset, how can I have self-control?”

“You need to learn to use your feelings as they should be used.”

I wasn’t sure what that meant.

“Your feelings tell you many things about the world,” she said, “but people seldom listen to what their feelings tell them. It’s much more satisfying to indulge one’s feelings than to learn from them.”

As I had indulged my anger at Laris that morning, I thought to myself. I had to admit that there had been a certain satisfaction in it. But what could my anger and hurt feelings have taught me about the world?

“You understand the feelings of the body,” Maara said. “When you feel cold, you find a way to warm yourself. You know what hunger means and how to satisfy it. When you’re ill or in pain, you do what you can to care for yourself.”

She looked at me to see if I had understood her. What she’d said seemed so obvious that I thought I might be missing something, but I nodded anyway.

“The feelings of the body tell you about the world that you can see and touch, but it’s not so easy to know what the feelings of your heart are telling you, because they’re telling you about a world that you can’t see.”

“The world of spirits is invisible,” I said, “and the world of the gods. I don’t know of any others.”

“There are many worlds we can’t see. I want to show you the one you most need to be aware of, because every human heart lives in it. That world is no less real than the world we see, but it’s much more difficult to understand. We can make a good start by learning to understand our own hearts, but as difficult as that is, it’s not enough. In many ways people are all the same, and in just as many ways, they’re all very different.”

Maara was silent for several minutes. She was trying to think of a way to teach me something important, and I waited for her to speak again.

“When your body feels pain,” she said at last, “you try to find the cause and do something to stop it, because your pain is warning you of a real danger. When your heart feels pain, you need to find the cause of that too, because the danger is no less real, and your pain will grow worse until you understand what caused it. Only then will you know what can be done to stop it.”

The answer came to me that afternoon. I was thinking about my anger at Laris, an anger I found it hard to justify. While I had no right to be jealous of a friendship that could only do Maara good, there was more to my anger than simple jealousy. It was one thing to seek Maara’s friendship. It was quite another to take something that belonged to me. Laris in all innocence had taken the place I wanted for myself, a place I felt I’d earned the right to.

Then I had to ask myself what place it was I meant to claim. It was more than sharing blankets on a cold night or finding comfort in being close to someone in a lonely place. In themselves, those things meant nothing. I had never thought twice about sharing blankets with Sparrow or with Taia or with any of the other companions. It was something I was used to from my childhood, but I felt that Maara was not used to it. The way she held herself made me careful how I touched her. She seldom touched me or gave me any sign that she wanted or even understood the gestures of companionship that were commonplace to me. It could be that the ways of her people were different from ours, or perhaps it was simply her own nature, but I had respected what I thought she wanted and kept my distance. Seeing Laris asleep beside her had surprised me because I thought that she would let no one come that close to her.

What had hurt me was believing that Laris was welcome where I was not. The place I wanted was the place nearest Maara’s heart, and if Laris had taken that from me, I would have found it hard to forgive her for it. Instead she had shown me that if she was welcome by Maara’s side, I too might be welcome there.

At once my heart felt lighter. I thought of Maara’s words.
Your pain will grow worse until you understand what caused it. Only then will you know what can be done to stop it.
And then I knew what to do.

Cael and Alpin came up the hill late that afternoon. They brought some cold supper with them, and we all ate together. Neither Cael nor Maara had much to say, but Alpin chattered away about the people she had met that day and the things she’d learned from them about this part of Merin’s land.

All of us kept the evening watch together. As I knew she would, Alpin stuck to her warrior like a cocklebur. When it was time for us to sleep, I watched with satisfaction as she carefully laid out their cloaks in the soft grass where Taia and I had made our bed the night before.

I followed her example. I took Maara’s cloak from her and laid it on the grass where she had spent the previous night. Then I laid over it the cloak she had given me. I slipped into our makeshift bed and held it open for her. She hesitated only a moment before she lay down beside me.

The next day it was our turn to stay at the farmstead with Donal and Kenit. The farmers were busy this time of year. Even the children had work to do. I would have helped them, but Maara reminded me that I had another responsibility. We were to be ready to challenge travelers and to warn cattle raiders away. While it sounded exciting, what it meant was that we all spent a great deal of time doing nothing.

The weather had turned quite warm, and the byre was stifling, so we set up a camp outdoors, under a sprawling oak tree in the farmer’s yard. Donal and Kenit amused themselves by playing a game that involved tossing sticks onto the ground and finding certain patterns in them that were supposed to mean something. I had seen the game played before, but I’d never learned it.

Maara sat gazing up at Greth’s Tor.

“Giant’s bones,” Donal said to her.

Maara looked at him. “What?”

“Looks like a giant’s bones,” he said. “There’s a knee there.” He pointed to a place halfway up the hill, where a knob of bare rock emerged through the thin soil. “A shoulder there.” He pointed to a similar place higher up. “Teeth there.” He pointed to the craggy hilltop. “My mother used to tell me a story. Let’s see if I remember it. I was never much for storytelling.”

Donal scratched his head and knit his brow. “A giant got hurt somehow. I forget that part. But he lay down to die and pulled a blanket of sod up over him. My mother pointed to the hill behind our house. Looked a lot like that one. ‘And there he died, and there he lies to this very day,’ she’d say, ‘and those crags are his bones.’” Donal chuckled. “Used to scare me silly when I had to go up that hill looking for a lost sheep. I was always afraid the giant might wake and any minute he’d stand up and sheep and I and all would tumble off his lap.”

Donal laughed quietly to himself, a deep rumbling sound that I found comforting.

Maara turned to me. “Do you know that story?”

I shook my head. It sounded like a lot of giant stories I’d heard, but I couldn’t remember any of them well enough to tell just at that moment.

“Do you know any others?” she asked. “Any about giants?”

Her eyes were bright with the eagerness of a child. I would have been glad to tell her a story, but the presence of the men made me shy.

“Well,” said Donal, “will you help us pass the time?”

His voice was so gentle and his eyes so kind that my shyness left me.

In ancient days, when only women were warriors, lived three brothers, herdsmen in a country still half wild. In those days, in that half-wild land, giants walked the earth. They were few and, for all their size, not often seen, but on stormy days they could be heard arguing amongst themselves in their deep rumbling tongue.

One day the eldest of the brothers took his sheep out to graze. He had far to go into the wilderness, and there he spied what he took to be a stone house, built lonely far away from the houses of men. When he approached it, he saw that it was no house, but a huge table made of stone. Two great stones set on end thrust up out of the earth, with an immense stone slab across the top of them.

A holly tree grew in the shelter of the stones, and by climbing it the eldest brother was able to reach the tabletop. There he saw a golden platter that held an entire lamb, roasted to a turn, an enormous silver goblet filled with wine, and a stone the size of his foot.

“Well now,” he thought to himself, “there are no sheep but mine here in this wilderness, and no lambs but belong to my sheep, so this lamb must belong to me.”

He sat down on the tabletop beside the golden platter, cut himself a fat slice of meat, and ate his fill.

“Well now,” he thought to himself, “a little bite of what was mine already hardly makes up for the theft of a lamb, so perhaps I should play with this thief a game of turnabout.”

And the eldest brother tucked the golden platter under his arm, climbed back down the holly tree, and went off home with his sheep.

His brothers admired the golden platter, and when they heard there was still a silver goblet on the stone table, they thought it would be a fine thing to have that too.

The eldest brother had begun to have unquiet thoughts about his theft of the golden platter, so he said to his brothers, “Since I brought the platter back, it seems only fair that someone else should bring the goblet.”

The middle brother claimed his right to be the next to seek adventure, and in the morning he took his sheep out to graze in the wilderness. He found the stone table without difficulty, but when he drew near to it, he saw that the holly tree had been torn out of the ground, roots and all, and lay some distance away.

The middle brother was both strong and clever. He dragged the holly tree back to the stone table, leaned it up against one of the upright stones, and clambered up it to the tabletop. There he found the silver goblet filled with wine and a stone the size of his foot. He drank as much of the wine as he could hold and reluctantly spilled the rest onto the ground. Then he took the silver goblet, climbed back down the holly tree, and went off home with his sheep.

The two brothers hid their treasures away, for they had little use for them in the simple life they led. From time to time they would take them out to admire them and congratulate themselves on their adventures. Then they would put their treasures carefully away again.

Now the two older brothers believed their youngest brother to be a little simple, and one evening they decided they would have some fun at his expense. They took out their treasures, the golden platter and the silver goblet, and cleaned and polished them until they shone brighter than the sun and moon together.

“What a shame,” the eldest brother said, “that our youngest brother should not have had an adventure and gained a treasure for himself.”

“What a pity,” the middle brother said, “that our youngest brother should be such a poor man, while both his brothers are men of wealth.”

They went on in this way until the youngest brother felt a little sorry for himself. He decided that he would go and find the stone table, to see if there might be a treasure there for him.

The next day the youngest brother took his sheep out to graze in the wilderness. He found the stone table without any trouble, but the holly tree that his brothers had told him of had been broken in two as a man breaks a kindling stick over his knee. One part lay a great distance to the east, and the other lay a great distance to the west. Even if he could have dragged both pieces back to the stone table, neither piece was long enough to reach the tabletop.

The youngest brother despaired of ever being able to discover if there might be another treasure on the stone table. Then the earth beneath his feet began to tremble, and he saw, striding toward him, a giant whose head seemed to touch the clouds and whose shadow blocked out the sun. The giant appeared to move quite slowly, but the length of his stride more than made up for the slowness of his gait. The young man stood where he was, as if his feet had grown roots that held him there, and in as little time as it takes to tell, the giant stood before him.