“Gracious indeed,” the journeywoman said to Danner, “considering that the message was already paid for.”
“I stressed a smallservice. And I thought it was important to cement good relations.” Now that they were here for good.
“You did right. Perhaps now that your circumstances have changed a little, you’ll be prepared to change your mind with regard to your other obligations in the north.”
“T’orre Na, I can’t, believe me. More than ever, I’ve too much to do here. I have to catch someone, a spy. It’s now or never. If she isn’t caught now, she’ll go underground. We’ll never be sure who we can trust again, I’m responsible for the evacuation of Port Central, just in case the Kurstdecides to eradicate this position. Nearly a thousand personnel and our stores and munitions have to go somewhere; and we don’t even know where, yet. I have to…” She pulled herself up with an effort. T’orre Na did not want to hear all her troubles. “There’s enough work here for every woman twice over–work that’s vital for our survival. I can’t, I absolutely cannot, spare anyone at this time. Please tell this to Cassil and the others of Holme Valley.”
“I urge you to reconsider. The Echraidhe are destroying herds and crops and people now. And trata is trata.”
“And if I don’t do all that needs doing here, right now, there won’t beany Mirrors to keep trata! Please, try and believe me.”
“Oh, I do,” T’orre Na said sadly, “but that makes no difference. Cassil needs help, you refuse it. You break trata. There is nothing more to be said.”
Chapter Fourteen
HILT LEFT FOR North Haven, taking the message with her. The Moon of Rowers came, but Marghe Amun’s monthly bleeding did not. It was then that she realized that what she and Thenike had done would affect her whole life. In a few months–a year, by Jeep standards–she would bear a child. A daughter. It was strange to think that soon she would be responsible for another human being. It made her feel restless, trapped.
Marghe paused, weed in one hand, trowel in the other. The ovum–the blastosphere, her enhanced memory whispered to her–was just cells. She could abort them, it, as easily as she had induced cell division. She could be just herself; she did not need to be responsible.
But she was responsible already. The child growing inside Thenike was partially of her doing. They would be soestre. There was already a bond.
Marghe knelt on the damp ground. She had a child growing in her belly. Did she want it?
Yes. She wanted to bear it–her; she wanted to name her, watch her learn to crawl, speak, think. Wanted her to have a home, belong.
She went back to her gardening.
The clear air of Ollfoss grew warmer daily, and Marghe and Gerrel spent their mornings and afternoons, and sometimes early evenings when the sun lay like an amber cloak over the tops of the trees, digging out weeds on their knees, trimming back excessive growth of jaellums and soca and neat’s‑foot.
When she was not on her knees in the garden, Marghe was with Thenike. They helped Wenn weave, gathered herbs with old Kenisi, took turns looking after Moss and Otter while Leifin and Namri were choosing a tree to cut to make a new door and Huellis made candles. They ate together, slept together, talked together; and Marghe learned.
When she took up the drums, it was to learn from Thenike how to use them to drive a story deep into the hearts of her listeners. When she took up a rope, she learned how the knots spelled out shorthand versions of concepts and phrases, how the colored threads made the words, or added emphasis. She was not a good singer, she did not have that smoky voice of Thenike’s, but she learned how to give a story rhythm and pacing, how to make it live in the mind’s eye of her listener. She was good at that.
She practiced on Thenike, telling her the story of her life, of her mother’s life, and her father’s, of how Company stole what it could not cheat from people, of the worlds she had visited, and the places of which she only knew rumor.
Her skin browned, and her arms thickened and grew strong. The room where Marghe had stayed became the guest room once more, and at night, before she fell asleep, she would look at their hands lying together, Thenike’s long, all sinew and bone, with that white scar snaking over the back of the thumb, her own blunt and spatulate, and feel full of the wonder of their differences. Sometimes she had strange dreams in which her belly swelled so much that she could not get through the doorway, and she felt trapped. She woke on those mornings to sunshine and Thenike’s hair spread over her pillow, and a feeling of restlessness she could not explain.
That restlessness grew like an unreachable itch as the Moon of Flowers passed into the beginning of Lazy Moon, and spring became early summer.
One evening, Thenike was sitting behind Marghe in the tub, rinsing Marghe’s hair. It had been windy that day, and the hair was tangled.
“Ouch.” Marghe felt irritable. “Be careful.”
“I am careful, but a knot is a knot.”
Marghe sat stiffly; Thenike worked in silence. Marghe felt restlessness and tension building up inside her until it was almost unbearable. “Stop. Just stop.” She pushed Thenike’s hands away. “We’ll cut it off. It’ll be easier.”
“Another few minutes and the tangles will all be gone.”
“I don’t want to wait another few minutes. And tomorrow it’ll only be all tangled again.” She twisted around to face Thenike. “I want it cut.”
“Well, how do you suggest we proceed? Shall I use my teeth?”
Thenike’s exasperation was understandable but did nothing to curb Marghe’s irritation. “I’m sorry,” she said, not sounding sorry at all. “It’s just…”She slapped at the water in frustration, sending it slopping over the edge of the tub. She would have to clean that later; it made her even more cross.
Thenike reached out and touched her hand. “I’ve watched you the last few days, winding up tighter and tighter, like a bow. Talk to me, and perhaps we can sort something out that does not rely upon cutting your beautiful hair.”
“I feel… trapped. No, that’s not the right word. It’s just that this place, Ollfoss, is so small. I see the same people, who talk about the same things. And every day I go into the garden, and I pull up the weeds from a different patch. And then I eat the same food. It’s… I want to know what’s happening in other places. Has my message got to Danner yet, and what does she think? How will Sara Hiam feel about me not testing the vaccine to the limit? And there’s so much I want to know. Here I am, stuck up here in the north–” She broke off, remembering that this was Thenike’s home. And yours.
Thenike merely gestured for her to go on.
“I’m here, in this small place, when there’s a whole world to see! The deserts and mountains, the swamplands and canyons. And the seas. Talking to you, before, while I was recovering from frostbite and exposure, before I got the virus, you made me realize who I really am, what it is that I like: new places, new people, discovering both, and how they influence each other. And since I realized that, all I’ve done is stay here, in one place. I need to be out there”–she waved her arm–“seeing a different horizon. I want to see old Ollfoss. The place where everything began, where all these different societies started. You’ve no idea how exciting that would be for me. To actually see the one place from which all this spread! I know, I know, there’s nothing there, probably, but I just want to seeit. It’s history.” She wanted to go, taste the air, touch the dirt, imagine how it had felt for those people.