When I moved to follow the monk, Kol stayed me with a gesture. “Warm thyself, Cartamandua-son. I’ll await thee, that we might advance thy teaching as the night settles in. If I can convince my sire of the need, I can gift thee the walking gard at next dawning, and so shall we be quit of each other the sooner.”
“Tonight? Certainly…but…” I hadn’t expected to go out again. Yet it was really just morning down by the sea. The rain pounded Picus’s thatched roof, the tumbledown sheds to either side of it, and the thick mat of leaves beneath the bedraggled maples and copper beeches. “Won’t you come indoors with us, vayar? I’ve so many questions. We could talk where it’s dry.”
Kol reached for a sturdy branch above his head, and in one smooth motion lifted his shoulders above the branch until he supported his whole weight on his stretched arms and hands. A graceful swing of his legs, a twisting motion, and he sat on the branch, knees drawn up in his encircling arms, perched as easily as a cat. “Thou’lt not be long inside.”
Whether this was a statement or a command, I wasn’t sure. Kol’s manner was a bit wearing. If my mother was beloved of all, then surely her brother must have something to recommend him. I just hadn’t seen it…save, of course, the grace to protect my physical well-being against Danae spite. From the sheltering doorway I watched him turn his face up, allowing the cold rain to bathe his face and stream his long red hair down his back.
“He is beautiful, is he not?” Picus stood at my shoulder, the ripe aroma of unwashed flesh and a diet heavy with wild onions souring the autumn pungency of old leaves and wet pine bark. “No Ardran rose was ever so lovely, no Morian stag ever so regal, no Evanori boar ever so stubborn as Kol Stian-son. Had he a soul, the Creator would not know whether to name him Archangel or condemn him to eternal fire for daring rival Him.”
“Kol is certainly hard, but even I would not call him soulless.” Not one who danced as he did, who grieved as he did.
Picus held open the flap of leather behind me. “Nay, nay. It is not a matter of naming. Have you ne’er been taught the holy writs, lad? The Creator gave the spark of life only to human creatures. Danae have souls no more than red deer or ash trees or the wind.”
“Then what of those like me? Am I half souled, part tree, part man, destined for half heaven or half hell?” I tossed this out in jest, thinking he but carried on his sparring with Kol. But his prattle stilled long enough to disturb me. I turned and found his pale eyes picking at my face as if to search the darkest nooks and crannies behind my heart and ribs.
“I know not,” he said softly. “There was a time when I believed the One God could not be so cruel as to beget a soulless creature upon a human parent. But then I saw evidence…” He switched his gaze back to the Dané in the tree. “Perhaps it is one by one He chooses.”
I swallowed hard and hid my mottled hands in my soggy bundle of clothes. No soul…that was not possible. I shifted my shoulders as if to prove I had will and sense of my own, and I remembered Gillarine Abbey church and how I had felt uplifted there, and reverent—surely the sign of gods speaking to a person, one capable of repentance and service, one possessing life beyond the body’s limits. But then, I had also felt uplifted when I saw Kol dance, when I had looked on Elene silhouetted in sunlight, and when I’d sat in Gillarine’s refectory eating stewed parsnips. How would one ever know if one lacked a soul? Even Danae had thoughts and will, emotions and, at least in Kol’s case, some sense of honor—not the marks of soulless beasts.
“Was Kol so fierce before his sister—my mother—was imprisoned?” Cowardly, I asked no more of souls.
“Kol hath ever a sober cast of mind,” said the monk, palpably relieved at my shift of subject. “More than most Danae, and of a certain, more than Clyste—not that she lacked intelligence to accompany her cheery nature. He ever seeks perfection in his being—a hard road for any of God’s creatures. But Clyste made him laugh and softened his eye, and my dear lad challenged him to find delight in brotherly friendship as well as duty. Twixt them both, held so dear by their love, Kol reflected Iero’s light upon us all. But I fear his joy has died with them.”
My dear lad…It took me a moment to realize the monk spoke of Eodward.
“Come inside, lad, and relieve thy chill.” The monk’s hand gripped my shoulder kindly, even if his offer was wholly nonsensical. Naught could relieve the chill he had just laid on me. For a being without a soul, death became the end of all.
Moist heat slapped my face as I ducked and stepped into Picus’s round hut—scarce eight paces across. Saverian knelt by a small fire pit in the center of the dark room, stretching her cloak to help the thick layers to dry. I needed no polite encouragement to sit on the hard-packed dirt beside her. Not only could I not stand upright without cracking my head on the low slanting ribs of the roof or poking my eye on wayward thatch, but I could scarce see or breathe at that height. If the monk had a hole in the roof to draw out his smoke, it was wholly inadequate to the task.
Picus let the door flap fall behind us. Quicker than blinking he had coaxed his fire brighter, set a clay pot of water over it, and snapped sprigs from a dry bundle dangling from his roof alongside a skinned rabbit, several woven nets bulging with pale, dusty vegetables, a variety of tools with leather-wrapped handles, and a pair of snowshoes. He settled cross-legged across the fire from me and Saverian and crushed the leaves into a clay mug and bowl. “We’ll have a bracing tea anon. ’Tis such pleasure to have company, I scarce know up from down—not seen a human person in much longer than you’d want to account. I’m flummoxed that I can recall how to speak, so you must command me stopper my mouth when thy ears protest. Kol comes to check on me now and again. Tends my garden or brings me a fish or a bag of apples, and in return I deluge him with human words, poor fellow, the last thing he cares to hear. Which recalls…”
He sprang to his feet and poked his head through the door flap. “Kol, as thou’rt waiting…my turnips suffer black mold, and the onions pull up soft and slimed, scarce a layer fit to eat. I fret this rain will finish them. The spelt in the far mead has no ripe heads, and frost nips the dawn. I know it’s been scarce a month since you’ve tended it, but if thou wouldst have mercy upon my poor plot, I’d be most grateful.”
I tried to hear Kol’s response, but I could not distinguish it from the sounds of snapping fire and rain rustling on the thatch, and the thousand other noises of storm-racked forest and distant sea vying for attention in my head. Overwhelmed with mystery, I could not even imagine what Picus required. I doubted Kol would set to work with rake and hoe. Another question to add to my growing tally.
I held my hands near the fire, but instantly withdrew them before my skin blackened like scorched paper. The shifting blue marks had faded to silver. I wrapped my arms around my unsettled middle and hoped the steam rising from my sodden shirt would suffice to calm my shivering.
Picus closed the flap again and lowered himself to the dirt floor, scratching his grizzled chin. “’Tis a wonder Kol comes here. The land grows ill. Will not stay healthy no matter that he puts it right. And my company is no pleasure to him. Though, indeed, he’s exiled himself from their company, save when he is summoned to the dance. Even his sire is near a stranger to him since Clyste’s fall.”
I believed I knew why. “None but you and he know that Janus fathered Clyste’s child.”
Picus nodded. “After Clyste’s prisoning, I saw that Kol bore some weighty burden and seemed like to shatter with it. So I baited him into a fight—not so difficult to do, as you see—and goaded forth his secret. Took me a good trimonth to walk without those bruises squalling, and I’ve ne’er regrown the teeth.”
He kneaded his unshaven left jaw for a moment, his attention suddenly far away. But then he scooted around and rummaged in the dark behind him, pulling out two irregularly woven blankets that might once have had some color. He gave one to each of us. “Come, thou’rt a soggy pair. Bundle up and get warm, mistress. I’ll leave thee lone here in the house and take me to the shed when sleep time comes so ye can do what women must. And I’ll not even think on it, I promise, or if I do, I’ll perform my most rigorous spiritual exercises or even hike me down to the sea and douse my head, though I could wish for better weather or at the least Kol to take me down a shorter path. The determination to penance can take a man only so far until it falls into the sin called ‘pride of mortification,’ if thou’rt familiar with Karish vice and virtue.”