A Journey of the Heart (15 page)

"Let them," she said. She chuckled. "Although I doubt they're anywhere within sight of this place. They won't stop running now until they're safe at home."

"Won't they come back for their wounded?"

"Oh, I suppose so," she said, "but they won't trouble us anymore."

"How can you be sure?"

"Their hearts are defeated," she said.

While the other apprentices set up our camp, I helped tend the wounded. One of Laris's warriors had a bad cut on her thigh. It was she for whom they had made the litter. I stitched her wound as I had seen the healer do for Maara. Laris's wound didn't require stitching, but I bound it up with herbs, to speed the healing. The only other injuries were a few blows to the head and some deep cuts that could prove dangerous if not well cleaned and cared for, but none of our warriors had taken a mortal wound, and none had died.

The northerners had not been so fortunate. I learned from Sparrow that at least a dozen of their warriors lay dead upon the hillside, and many more had wounds so dreadful that they must surely die.

While I had so much to do, I had no time to think about the battle or about my part in it. I was glad for the distraction, but at last I had done all I could for the wounded. As I put my medicines away, Taia came to me and put her arm around my shoulders.

"Tamras of the Bow," she said, "you did well today."

"As did you," I told her. "You showed great courage on the battlefield."

A common phrase, it was what one said to a warrior who had fought well, and I meant every word of it. I'd never had much of an opinion of Taia as a warrior. That day she surprised me. She smiled with pleasure at my praise. I think she had surprised herself.

I went with Taia to join the other apprentices. They had all gathered around one of the fires, while the warriors were gathered around another. Food had been prepared and the warriors fed. Sparrow handed me a bowl of soup. Although it was our first meal since breakfast, I could swallow only a few mouthfuls of it. I looked out over the treetops and watched the darkness fall.

Someone was watching me. I turned and met Maara's eyes. She was sitting next to Laris at the warriors' fire. I wondered why her face was dirty. Then I remembered. I put my hand to my own face, and a bit of dried blood crumbled into my palm.

Now the time had come for the warriors to relive their victory. One of the men leaped to his feet and praised the courage of another who had fought beside him before telling of his own exploits that day. He waved his arm above his head and danced back and forth to demonstrate his skillful swordplay.

When he sat down, another man stood up and told of his fierce combat with a much bigger man than he, a man so large that by the end of the story he had become a giant.

As the warriors spoke, their eyes gleamed with more than firelight. Then I saw the smudges on one warrior's face. He had marked himself with blood, as Maara had marked herself and me. When I looked around at the others, I saw several more.

I nudged Sparrow, who was sitting beside me. "Is it the custom here for warriors to mark themselves like that?"

She shook her head. "It never has been before. Perhaps they didn't want to be outdone by Maara."

"I think your warrior has set a fashion," said Taia, who sat next to Sparrow.

I laughed at that. It felt good to laugh, but at the same time, I felt as if the laughter had come from someone else.

Now more warriors stood up to tell their stories. Soon almost all of them were on their feet, congratulating themselves, encouraging one another, adding something to someone's story or correcting someone who had made a mistake. A good-natured squabble broke out over who had drawn first blood. In the shadows, Laris and Maara watched them from a distance.

Then Vintel took up her shield and beat her sword upon it until everyone was quiet. Once she had their attention, she didn't speak right away, but gazed at them with pride, until I could feel in the air their anticipation of her praise.

"Today victory is ours," she said at last. "The retelling of these tales will warm our hearts through the coming winter. Great feats of arms were done today. I expected no less from the warriors of Merin's house."

She looked around at them, and her warriors grinned back at her, well pleased with themselves.

"Before you take all the glory to yourselves," she said, "let us praise the one who turned the tide of battle."

While the warriors were glancing at one another, wondering who she meant, Vintel approached our fire. She went directly to Taia and extended her hand. Taia took it, and Vintel drew her to her feet and led her to the warriors' fire.

"Now it's your turn," Vintel said to her. "Tell us of your own brave deeds."

"I have no brave deeds to boast of," Taia said.

Vintel turned to Laris. "You have neglected to teach your apprentice the greatest of the arts of war. This young woman doesn't seem to know how to make much of herself."

The warriors laughed.

"If she can't do her own boasting, I'll have to do it for her, just this once." Vintel put her arm around Taia's shoulders. "Today this young woman showed as much courage as I've ever seen upon the battlefield. With no sword, no dagger, no weapon but a frail twig, she led a band armed with nothing more than brave hearts against the enemy. If she had not, I think we would be telling grimmer stories of the fighting this day."

"I didn't -- " Taia said.

"This is not a day for modesty," Vintel told her. "In a few months' time you would have received your shield in any case, but today you proved yourself a warrior."

Vintel gestured to Laris, who approached her, carrying a sword.

"This sword was captured from one of the enemy that you helped put to flight," said Vintel. "Let it be the token of your part in this victory."

Laris fastened the sword to Taia's belt.

Sparrow took my hand and squeezed it.

"Now she'll honor you," she whispered.

But Vintel sat down beside the warriors' fire and made a place for Taia beside her, and the warriors resumed their celebration.

I was relieved that Vintel wasn't going to call attention to me, but Sparrow was disappointed.

"It isn't fair," she said. "She should have honored you too. It isn't fair for Taia to get all the glory."

"She's welcome to it," I said.

But Sparrow was indignant. "How can she disregard what you did?"

"I did very little."

"You killed a warrior of the northern tribes. Vintel should have honored you for the kill, if for nothing else. And it was your kill that put the heart into Taia in the first place."

"Maybe Vintel doesn't know."

"She knows."

"She does?"

"Your skill hasn't gone unnoticed," Sparrow said. "I heard several of the warriors speak to her about it. Laris made a point of speaking to her about it. Vintel can't be overjoyed that your warrior was right about something, but that doesn't excuse her from giving praise where praise is due."

"I don't want Vintel's praise."

Sparrow gave me a puzzled look. "I don't understand. Why are you so at odds with her?"

"Because she and my warrior are at odds."

"That's all?" Her voice told me she thought there must be more.

"Vintel hasn't had much use for me since she asked for me as an apprentice and I chose someone else."

"Well," said Sparrow, smiling her sweetest smile at me. "I can't blame her for being angry about that."

While the warriors sat at their fire recounting to one another their feats of arms, the apprentices had a celebration of their own. At first they were all elated, swept up in the excitement. They chattered on about their wild charge and the thrill of seeing the enemy flee from them in confusion. What they had done that day made them feel powerful, more powerful than they had ever felt before, and as they had every right to do, they indulged their pride in themselves.

But as the night wore on, they grew quiet and thoughtful. They must have seen some dreadful things that day. I wondered if the killing bothered them. Since I was one of the killers myself, I didn't ask.

Maara waited until I was alone. All evening she had been sitting with Laris in the shadows. All evening I had known exactly where she was. Even while I was talking with Sparrow and listening to the others tell their stories, I was waiting for her. When the last of the apprentices had gone to bed, she came and sat beside me.

I don't know what I expected. I felt hollow, as if the ice around my heart had melted and left nothing in its place. I wanted her to make me feel like myself again.

"Only a few weeks ago," she said softly, "you told me you were reluctant to take the lives of birds, but you found your power, and you learned to take no harm from exercising it."

It felt to me like a very long time since I had been hunting birds.

"You will master this new power too," she said.

She started to stand up. Fearful that she was going to leave me, I clutched at her sleeve, like a child grasping at her mother's skirts. At once I was ashamed of myself, and I let go.

"I'll be right back," she said.

She disappeared into the shadows of the cave. When she returned, she was carrying a shield. I remembered that her shield had been damaged in the fighting, and I thought she had brought it to the fire to repair it, but when she sat down beside me, I saw that it was the shield I had taken from the northerner.

"Vintel should have honored you too," she said.

"I'm glad she didn't."

"So am I, but you deserve the honors of war no less than Taia."

Maara set the shield down in front of me. "This is yours." She lifted the edge, so that I could see the sword that lay beneath it. "So is this."

When I started to say I didn't want them, she put a finger to my lips.

"When you told me you didn't want the bow, I said nothing, because you weren't ready to accept it, but I believe it was a gift for you. However it came to be where we found it, it was meant to find you. Now it has brought you glory and the spoils of war. I think it would have been better if this had not happened so soon, but nothing can change what's done, and now you must be worthy of the man you killed."

The man I killed.

Maara leaned close to me and peered into my eyes. "Do you regret what you did?"

I saw in my mind's eye my warrior lying on the ground, sheltering under her shield, and the northern warrior standing over her. I shook my head.

"That's good," she said, "because your regret would do him a great wrong. It would be as if he died for nothing."

She said no more, but she made no move to leave me, and I took comfort from having her nearby. I tried to think of something to ask her, so that she would talk to me some more.

"Some of the men marked themselves with blood," I said.

"Yes."

"Why?"

"You must ask them that."

"Why did you mark me?"

She sighed. "It's the custom among my people. Laris told me it hasn't been done here in many years. I should have thought before I did it, but it has a meaning I would have you understand."

"What does it mean?"

"When you butchered animals at home," she said, "did you not make an offering of blood to the Mother?"

"Of course we did."

"Why did you do that?"

"Because all life comes from her."

"That's right," she said. "We offer her the first blood of everything -- the first blood of the animals we kill, the first blood of the maiden, the first blood of childbirth. All life is hers, and when a warrior marks herself with blood, she offers back the life she took."

"I thought it was a kind of boasting."

"Not at all," she said. "Not at all."

In spite of myself, I yawned.

Maara stood up and spread her cloak on the ground there beside the fire. The others had made their beds in the shelter of the cave, but Maara made ours out in the open air. She waited for me to lie down. Then she lay down beside me and pulled my cloak over us.

Although I was exhausted, I was in no hurry to sleep. I lay open-eyed, gazing up at the stars.

"Yes," she said. "He will come to you in dreams."

That she understood my fears was a comfort to me. "What shall I do?"

"Sleep," she said, "and when you meet him face to face, don't be afraid to speak to him. Tell him that though you are young and small of body, your spirit is large and powerful. Tell him it was no disgrace to be defeated by someone so powerful. Then tell him to go on to the place of new beginnings and leave you in peace."

In spite of my fear, I had to laugh. Surely this was boasting so absurd, so grandiose, that his spirit would only laugh at me.

"But my spirit isn't large and powerful," I said.

"You think not?"

"I think not."

"Look back over this day and tell me what you did."

All evening I had been trying to forget what I did that day, but she made me look at it again.

"You shot an arrow," she said. "And you killed a man."

I nodded.

"Don't you see? That act was the pivot around which everything changed. The world changed, because of what you did. Because of you we celebrated a victory tonight, and because of you the man who would have killed me died, while I went on living. Now tell me how powerless you are."

She didn't wait for a reply. She turned away from me, onto her side. I lay beside her, gazing up at the stars, while my heart grew warm again and tears gathered in my eyes.

At last I turned to her and laid my face against her back. For a long time I listened to the life in her, until I slept, untroubled by dreams.

I woke to angry voices.

" -- not my doing," said Vintel. "It's as well for you she brought the thing with her."

My warrior spat out a few words in a language I didn't understand. It sounded like a curse.

"Take her home, then," Vintel replied. "I'm sick to death of looking after the both of you."

Before I could gather my thoughts together, Vintel was gone.

It was still dark. Not even the first hint of dawn lightened the eastern sky.