“Try to sit up,” said Mrs. Mad’r. “Let me move the pillow. There.” She felt the blankets being arranged around her. “Would you like me to open the window?” She heard the sash being raised, but she did not turn her head to look. A breeze blew through the open window. It smelled of rain.
“Once, the Moon looked down upon the hills of Anatolia and saw a shepherd lying in a meadow. She loved him, but the love of the Moon is dangerous to mortals, so she poured a potion made of the meadow poppies into his eyes so he would sleep for thirty years. Each of those years, she bore him a daughter, and when that daughter was weaned she placed her in a willow basket, which she set floating on the river Volga. The first of those baskets was found by women washing clothes on the riverbank, who took the child and raised her in their village. She was called T̈lgy, which in English means Oak. Did you learn English in school? Did you understand Anne Martin, when she spoke to you?”
She nodded, still without looking at Mrs. Mad’r.
“Would you like something to drink?”
She nodded again, and Mrs. Mada’r poured water from a pitcher into a cup. Both were made of a thick, green glass with bubbles in it.
“The Daughters of the Moon grow quickly. When the second of those baskets floated down the river, Tölgy carried her sister Bor’ka into the forest, where she raised her among the groves of oak and alder, birch and willow, with foxes and owls for companions. And so with all the Daughters of the Moon. But after thirty years the shepherd woke, to find that his friends no longer remembered him, that he had lost the shining woman who came to him in dreams, and that he could no longer sleep. He spent the rest of his life consulting doctors and magicians, drinking medicines and potions, anything that would allow him to sleep again. But he died with his eyes open. The year after the shepherd she had loved woke, the Moon bore a son, the White Stag, and when the stag was weaned, she set him down on the bank of the Volga, where he was raised by his sisters. But being a stag, it was his nature to roam, and he often left to wander the slopes of the Northern Mountains. Yes? I thought you said something. Perhaps you’re wondering what happened to Ny’rfa and Ha’rsfa. Well, I’ll tell you.”
Ha’rsfa lay in Ny’rfa’s arms. No, they were Magyar’s, and Ny’rfa was standing beside her, looking up at the sky.
“Oh, Mother,” she heard Ny’rfa whisper, “if your arms tightened around us as you lowered us into the baskets, if one tear of yours mingled with the river before you sent us floating away from you to live among the trees of the forest, help me now.”
The clouds shifted above them, gray and white, like floating mountains. Then something flashed in the sky, and Ny’rfa shrieked, a high, piercing sound. The Horsemen covered their ears, and even Hunyor stepped back, startled, kicking the stool so that it toppled onto its side. Something shrieked in response and hurled itself from the sky, like lightning. A falcon, as gray and white as the clouds, perched on Ny’rfa’s shoulder. It turned its head, glaring at the Horsemen.
Ny’rfa glared at them as fiercely, but H’rsfa saw that her hands were trembling. The falcon had dug its claws into her shoulder, and a stain was spreading from her shoulder down the front of her tunic. Instinctively, wanting to help, she reached her hands, aching now from the leather that bound them, toward her sister. But there was another way.
“Let me stand,” she whispered to Magyar, and gestured as well as she could so he would understand. More gently than she had expected, he helped her to her feet, keeping one arm around her. “Oh, Mother,” she whispered, “let me show what you gave your daughters when you mingled your blood with that of a mortal.”
She held her hands over the mud, and so low that the Horsemen heard it only because they had been still since the falcon’s scream, she made the sound of wind blowing through the meadow: “Shhhhhhh …”
Green stems rose from the mud, developed leaves, flowered. Magyar bent down to touch the grasses that were spreading around them, the small blue flowers of flax. Then he spoke to Hunyor, and Hunyor answered. Magyar spoke again, pointing to the falcon on Ny’r-fa’s shoulder.
Ha’rsfa turned to Demas. “What are they saying?”
Demas stroked the grasses with wonder and said, “Magyar wants to have you for wife. He says Hunyor should take your sister. He says it is lucky, marrying daughters of goddess. Many tribes of barbaroi are coming from mountains to north. With luck, this tribe will win battles, find land.”
“Many tribes?” said Ny’rfa. The falcon clutched her shoulder more tightly, glaring at Ha’rsfa with golden eyes. “Oh, my sisters, what will happen to you when those other tribes come?” She raised her hands to her face. For the first time, Ha’rsfa realized, she looked defeated. The falcon sprang into the air and flapped its wings.
H’rsfa thought of her sisters, binding their wounds in the cave by the riverbank, waiting for her and Ny’rfa to return. They were not warriors. Suddenly she said, “Let our sisters come here! Demas, tell Hunyor there are many daughters of the goddess, twenty-five, maybe twenty-six more. Tell him we will bring him luck, we will call birds from the air, make his crops grow. Tell him, oh, tell him anything!”
“H’rsfa, no!” said Ny’rfa. “How can we live with these barbarians?”
But Demas had already spoken. H’rsfa could feel Magyar’s arm tighten around her. Hunyor stood silent while the Horsemen waited for his decision. H’rsfa heard the falcon shriek high above them. She looked up and watched him circle once over the village, then fly off toward the west.
Hunyor walked to Ny’rfa and stood before her, then held out his hands. Slowly, reluctantly, she put her hands in his. He spoke, a single word, then untied the leather from her wrists. Ny’rfa pointed to the villagers. “Them too,” she said. “Untie them too.”
Magyar clutched Ha’rsfa’s shoulder and shouted with triumph. He turned to Demas and said—
“This is your tribe,” Demas translated. “This is your home.” And through her tears, H’rsfa saw that the Horsemen were untying the villagers’ hands.
“So Ny’rfa and H’rsfa married Hunyor and Magyar. They learned the language of their husbands, and took names in that language. Ny’rfa became Tünde, and Ha’rsfa became Csilla. Be careful, you’ll spill your water. Is your name T̈nde, then?”
She shook her head.
“Csilla? Welcome to my house, Csilla. You’ve been very brave, like a Daughter of the Moon.”
Csilla put the cup on the table beside the bed. “What happened then?” Her voice sounded hoarse, like a rusted lock.
“The Daughters of the Moon married Horsemen, except for Ibolya, who became a healer, collecting and studying the plants of the countries they traveled through. They traveled west, following the falcon’s flight, which the Horsemen had taken for an omen. Finally, they settled in the lands about the river Danube. Their children played with the children of the tribe, and those children’s pale faces, their hair as green as the leaves of the forest, were seen as signs of luck, the blessing of the Forest Goddess. But they could not touch metal, and they would not eat meat. So the tribesmen called them the T̈nde’r, after T̈nde who had married Hunyor, which means the Fairy Folk, and always regarded them as different from themselves.”
A sparrow was singing in the linden tree outside the window. Csilla could identify the tree by its heart-shaped leaves. Her father had taught her the shapes of all the leaves …But she did not want to think about her father.
Sunlight had dried the rain. The linden was in flower, and its scent filled the room. She was sitting up in bed, leaning against the pillows, listening to the sparrow. How cool the pillows were, how clear the sunlight.
She whistled, a tune like the sparrow’s song, and it stopped to listen to her, then hopped down to the windowsill, and onto the table, and onto the finger she held out for it.