White Mare's Daughter (12 page)

Even Danu. Even the keeper of his Mother’s house, whose
ambition rose no higher than that.

“And maybe,” said Catin as if she had never paused, “the
dream itself will fade in daylight, and the terror turn aside.”

“The Lady will protect us,” Danu said. He willed himself to
believe it. Willed so strongly that he almost laughed, dizzy with the effort.

She did laugh, perhaps at his expression, perhaps for plain
relief. Then laughter turned to something else; and he was ready for her:
marvelous, the Lady’s hand in it surely, and her blessing.

oOo

“Well?”

Danu was doing his best to walk steadily, let alone think
clearly. He ached to the bone, and the manly part of him was the worst of it.
But he kept smiling, and trying to hide it, because he was supposed to be
overseeing the baking.

Tilia trapped him in a corner of the kitchen, blocking his
escape with her ample body. “Well?” she said again. “Did she? Did she talk?”

Danu knew a brief, appalling impulse to deny it—to lie. To
his sister. To the Mother’s heir. That was so horrifying that it emptied him of
words.

She took his silence for answer. She snorted in disgust. “They
made that the Mother’s heir of Larchwood. Imagine it!”

Danu could, easily. But Tilia knew what she knew. He did not
try to convince her otherwise.

She went away. He was glad. It saved his lying—and why he
felt he should, he could not think. He could not think clearly at all. He kept
remembering blood and fire, and Catin.

Danu performed his duties as he always had, or so he could
hope. He was startled therefore, toward evening, to be summoned into the
Mother’s presence.

The acolyte who brought the message seemed rather too
pleased with her errand, by which Danu presumed that he had committed some
infraction. He could not imagine what it might be—unless Tilia had complained
to the Mother of his apparent failure with Catin.

He was not given time to make himself properly presentable.
The acolyte was insistent. “She asks for you now.” In his ragged and
flour-stained shirt, therefore, he went from the baking to the Mother’s
presence.

oOo

Every house of any size or style in the Lady’s country
kept a room apart, a shrine of the goddess like an image of the great one in
the city’s heart. Yet while men were forbidden entrance into the temple, the
shrine was open to any who wished to address the Lady face to face.

The shrine in the Mother’s house was old, as old as anyone
living could remember. Its altar was small, the image of the Lady ancient. Its
stone was worn smooth, but its shape was clear still, great fecund breasts and
huge thighs. Her signs were drawn about her, the magic that only Mothers knew.

There was an offering of flowers in front of the image, and
all the lamps were lit, burning sweet-scented oil. No memory here of blood and
fire, death and terror. Only peace.

The Mother sat before the altar, an image in living flesh of
the stone-carved Lady. Her face offered Danu nothing. It was serene as always,
the dark eyes focused inward, contemplating the Lady’s wisdom. She was the
wisest of the Mothers in this corner of the world; she heard the Lady’s voice
clearly, as few ever did, even those who were Mothers.

Danu knelt in front of her, bowed his head and waited. He
did not allow himself to be afraid. If she wished to rebuke him, she would.

She laid a hand on his head. He bent beneath the weight of
her benediction. “Child,” she said in her beautiful voice. “If I bade you leave
this city, would you do it?”

He did not move, though his body stiffened. He had learned
somewhat from her: how to discipline himself. How to be still. “Have I sinned
so terribly?” he asked, very low.

“Oh, child!” said the Mother, and for once she seemed not so
serene. She sounded, strangely, like Tilia; which made him wonder—

But he could not let his mind wander, not now. “Child,” said
the Mother, “you have done nothing at all to offend me or the Lady who speaks
in me. Never fear that. I ask again: would you do it?”

“I do as the Lady commands,” Danu said.

She made him look up at her, took his face in her hands and
raised it whether he would or no. He met her eyes, dark eyes, tilted up at the
corners as Tilia’s were. They were not so serene now, and yet they were full of
the Lady’s presence. “You know why the Mother of Larchwood came to Three Birds,”
she said. Of course she would know that; she was the Mother. “The way of your
knowing . . . did you like Catin?”

He flushed in spite of himself, but she would not let him
look away. “I like her well enough,” he said.

“I see that you do,” said the Mother. He could hear no irony
in it. “She has asked for you—to go with her on her return to Larchwood. Not
bound to her; simply to go.”

“Why?” It was the only word in Danu, the only one he could
utter.

“You dream dreams,” she said.

Danu shook his head. “No. I know that. I meant—what is in
Larchwood, that I must be there to see it?”

“She said,” said the Mother, “that you would understand when
you came to it. But you must go to Larchwood.”

Danu sat on his heels. Only her hands on his cheeks held him
up. Of all the things she might have asked of him, this was the last he would
have expected.

Leave Three Birds? He had been outside of it, of course he
had: hunting, herding, traveling about visiting this city or that. But to leave
it truly, to dwell somewhere else, that he had never imagined, nor wished for.

He had been born in this place. He hoped to die in it. He
had no desire in the world to leave it.

Unless the Lady asked.

“Do you wish me to go?” he asked the Mother.

“What I wish matters little,” she said. “The Lady wishes you
to go. There is somewhat that she would have you do, some thing that she
requires of you.”

Danu closed his eyes. Yes, he knew that. It was a fullness
in his belly, a hammering in his heart. And, though it shamed him, a kind of
dizzy excitement. To go so far on the Lady’s errand—to live in Catin’s city,
among her people—how many of his people had ever done so much?

He wanted to go. It shocked him a little; it was too much
like disloyalty. But he wanted it.

The Mother knew. When he opened his eyes, she was smiling.
There was sadness in the smile, but pride, too. “You will matter in the world,”
she said.

That took him aback. “But I don’t want—”

“Of course you do,” she said. “Everyone does. Go, prepare.
There’s much to do; and the Mother and her children depart in the morning.”

“So soon? But—”

“They have what they came for,” she said. She set a kiss on
his forehead. “Go now. Be quick.”

oOo

He had obeyed her before he thought; before it dawned on
him what she asked. To set this house in order—to find someone to take his
place— to see to the guests meanwhile, and the servants, and—

They all knew that he was going. It was always so. Servants
were keener-witted than their masters, more often than not; and quicker to
understand subtle signs.

These seemed actually to regret that he must go, though that
perhaps was fear for their leisure. He had set Beki over them, Beki who neither
knew nor understood the meaning of idleness.

But even they did not know why Catin had insisted that he
follow her to Larchwood. It could not be the spell he cast in the night. He was
no such sorcerer, nor had any wish to be.

“They have a secret,” Col said. Col had come from a city far
to the west, long ago; he saw deeper than some, and his ears were keen. “None
of them will speak of it, but they all know. It haunts them. I heard the
Mother’s heir speak of you. ‘He is the one,’ she said. ‘He knows what no one
else knows.’”

Danu was aware of no such thing, and would tell her so at
the earliest opportunity. But he was trapped in the bonds of his duty, and when
he could escape it was deep night. There was no one in his bed, no sign that
anyone had been there. He fell into it exhausted; was asleep before he touched
the coverlet.

oOo

He woke shivering. The air held the chill of dawn, but the
house was silent still. The Mothers had not risen yet, nor gone to call the
sun.

The lamp that he had left lit when he fell asleep was still
burning. It illumined the pack that he had made, the belongings that he would
take; and the many that he had left behind.

He was not going away to be a woman’s chosen man, to remain
with her in her city and never return to the place where he was born. He could
come back. He would, he swore to himself.

He rose and washed and dressed, too restless to lie abed;
though it would be full morning before they set out for Larchwood. He kept
having to pause. His heart kept hammering; dizziness kept swaying him as he
stood or bent.

He straightened at last, closed his eyes, breathed deep and
held it. Just then he heard the sound that had comforted him all his life, the
Mother’s tread as she went out to call the sun. That steadied him. He could
open his eyes, let go the breath, go out to hear the morning song.

Danu had not troubled to tell anyone that he was going. The
servants knew. He had presumed that everyone else did.

But when at last, after what seemed an unconscionably long
while, he came out with his pack and his walking-stick to take his place among
the departing guests, Tilia stared at him from among the acolytes and the
younger sisters. Her expression was shocked—too shocked at first for anger.

Danu stared at her, shocked himself. Tilia knew everything.
She always had. Then how—

There was no time to ask, nor was this the place to do it.
Tilia might have cared little for that, but the Mother had come between. Her
presence filled his vision. She embraced him and held him till the world shrank
to the circle of her arms and the softness of her breast.

She did not speak. All that was necessary had been said.

She let him go. He maintained such serenity as he might, and
walked to the place that waited for him among the travellers from Larchwood.

He did not glance at Tilia. Still he could feel the heat of
her temper, as if he passed a new-lit fire.

She would never forgive him this, he knew in his belly. No
more could he keep from doing it. This was the Lady’s will.

She should listen, he thought. She should still that tongue
of hers and quell that temper, and let the Lady speak to her. Then she would
have known as the Mother did, as Danu himself knew, that he must do this.

He had never let himself think such thoughts before. They
came of his leaving, of the shock and the suddenness of it. He could see more
clearly than he had before, or less kindly.

And yet, for that, he could look on his sister with more
compassion than he might have mustered before. She would be Mother in her time,
but not until she learned to be quiet. To listen.

While he wandered inside himself, the drums had begun to
beat, the pipes to shrill, beginning the song of farewell to honored guests. As
was both polite and proper, the guests—and Danu in their midst—danced to the
music, a sweeping, swaying step that carried them lightly forward. The people
of Three Birds, gathered along the eastward way, raised their voices amid the
music.

Even the Mother of Larchwood was dancing, ponderous in her
dignity. Danu found himself handlinked with her, and Catin on his other side,
and the rest in a skein winding along behind. Step and sweep, dip and sway,
while the drums beat and the pipes called, and the voices of women wove in and
about them.

This was the way he wished to remember Three Birds: this
bright morning, these people singing, and his body caught up in the dance. He
would forget, for the moment, his sister’s anger, his own fear, the dark thing
that called him toward the rising sun.

Time enough later to remember. Time enough and more, to
learn what the Lady intended for him.

Past the outermost limits of Three Birds, after the last
excited child and barking dog had retreated in search of other entertainment,
the travellers dropped out of their dance and settled to a firm and steady
walking-pace\

Danu was breathing lightly. The wind felt cool on his
sweating face. He was still, he noticed with a small start, handlinked between
the Mother and Catin.

They slipped free together, as if in the last movement of
the dance. Danu would have been glad to hold back, to let the rest of the
walkers pass him, but they made a wall behind, keeping him irresistibly in
front.

It was not so ill a place to be, once he resigned himself to
it. He had walked as far as they would walk today, hunting or visiting cities
eastward of Three Birds. Tomorrow again he would walk roads he knew. Thereafter
would be all new, all unfamiliar.

For now, and for tomorrow, he would let the walking be all
he thought of. He did not look back to the city. He let memory limn it for him:
the houses in their circles, the rise of the Lady’s house above them, and the
birds that nested in the eves, hunted and mated and played in air blessed with
their presence.

Other cities were never so full of birds. Danu wondered if
Larchwood would be blessed with trees.

Here on the plain, trees were precious, cherished where they
grew, worshipped as the Lady’s own. Larchwood was near the wood that walled the
world. It might be all made of trees. What a wonder if it was.

The farther the people from Larchwood walked, the nearer
they came to their own city, the less dour their faces grew. Danu was the
stranger now, the quiet one. They seemed to have taken heart from their
journey, though it had accomplished nothing that he could clearly see.

oOo

The first night they stayed as guests in a town called Two
Rivers. Its Mother was young, almost as young as Catin, and uncertain of her
powers as yet. She knew Danu, had been his sisters’ companion when she was
small; but he had not seen her since he grew to be a man. Her eyes lingered on
him at the feast that she had spread for the travellers.