Children of the Wolves (7 page)

But then, Jelena argued with herself, she had seen other women look at Michael like that. He was an attractive man, and a kind one, and he held a position of prestige in the community. At the moment he was unavailable, but that was not a permanent condition for him. So it was natural for unpartnered women (and even some of the partnered ones) to give him speculative glances. That didn't mean Michael had responded to a speculative glance.

Jelena drained the mug of well water at her place and got to her feet. She pressed her hand against Michael's shoulder as he began to rise. “Finish,” she said. “No harm will come to me. I'm just going to relax a moment in the sunshine.”

It was the first time she had ever lied to him.

She smiled her goodbyes to the friends at the table and left the dining hall, not wanting to poison the atmosphere with her negativity and doubts, her tensions and suspicions.

Damn Teresa. As if Jelena didn't have enough on her mind already; she didn't need to have this unhappy doubt added to her burdens. She crossed the sunlit courtyard, lifted a hand in greeting to the sentries, and headed toward the shade of one of the big oaks near the fence.

The rememberer lived alone in quarters far from the meeting hall, near the southwest corner of the main enclosure. His cabin snuggled close to the fence, far from the life of the people though still inside the borders of their village.

Jelena raised her hand to knock on the door to his cabin, then hesitated. She had nothing to give. One did not come to the rememberer empty-handed. She squared her shoulders. That was just an excuse, her mind trying to find a way out of this. She rapped on the door, waited a moment. No light emanated from the cabin, no sound. But that didn't mean the rememberer was absent.

She took another breath and knocked again.

“Enter,” a hoarse voice called from within.

Jelena squelched the impulse to run away. She pushed open the cracked wooden door, peering into the darkness beyond. She stepped into the cabin, leaving the door ajar. Blankets covered the windows, casting the living area into gloom. A single candle burned on a table in the center of the room. The rememberer sat huddled in a chair next to the table, his back to her.

She opened her mouth to say something, then sneezed. The overripe musty scent told her the last time the place had been cleaned was the last time she'd been here — and that was quite a while back. With sharp sound, she strode to the nearest window and pulled the blanket down. Sunlight streamed into the cabin, dust motes dancing in the light.

“It must be Jelena,” the rememberer said dryly, making no move to arise or turn to see her.

“You don't have to be like this,” Jelena chided, walking to the pump in the corner, finding an overturned bucket and pumping cold water into it.

On a shelf along the wall she found a cloth — none too clean, but it would do. She began cleaning surfaces, arranging objects, throwing trash into a wash basket near the door. The rememberer didn't stir as she straightened his belongings. She hung the blankets and his clothing out to air in the sun, draping everything over tree branches and along the perimeter fence.

Once she'd cleaned the worst of the mess, she went back outside with a small bowl she'd found near the pump. She'd seen a patch of red raspberries near the paddock. Taking a few minutes, she gathered them, then brought the harvest back to the cabin and put the bowl on the table near the rememberer. She popped one of the raspberries into her mouth and indicated that he should do the same. An ancient, bony hand reached for the bowl, picked up a raspberry, unsteadily brought it to his lips. She saw tears on his cheeks but didn't comment on them.

“I want you to tell me,” she began.

“Child, that world has gone — ”

“No,” Jelena said, interrupting him before he could get started. She didn't want to hear his wild talk of immense cities glittering with metal and glass and stone. She could barely comprehend the world he remembered as if he'd fallen asleep just yesterday. To hear him talk made her sick to her stomach.

He disliked talking about the past as much as the people disliked hearing of it. So much had been lost. Too much, more than one soul could bear. “I wasn't talking about then,” she said in a soothing tone. “I'm talking about now. Or at least recently.”

The rememberer nodded, then leaned forward to take another raspberry from the bowl. When he moved into the light, she could see his time-ruined face, the skin fallen into folds and wrinkles that molded over his skull like a death's-head. His eyes were black and ancient and tormented. She looked away. He had been a first born. What he had seen upon awakening — it surprised Jelena that he had any moments of sanity at all.

“I want you to tell me about Michael,” she said.

“Michael?” the hoarse voice echoed. “What do you want to know about Michael that you cannot discern for yourself?”

Jelena looked down at her hands twisting in her lap. “I know he is attractive to women,” she said. “Today, he asked me about Viktor the musician — as if he wished for me to have a special friendship with Viktor. In the hopes, perhaps, that I would no longer be a burden to him. Do you understand my meaning?” The misery welled in her throat as she spoke, burning and harsh, like acid in her mouth.

“You think Michael has found one to partner with? And he cannot do so until you awaken and he is no longer your protector?”

“Yes,” Jelena said, raising her head. The rememberer's eyes met hers. He seemed even sadder now. “That is what I think. What I wonder — ”

“Michael will always do his duty,” he said.

“I want to do what is right,” Jelena said wretchedly.

“I am not the person to advise you in affairs of the heart.”

“Has it ever — worked?” Jelena asked. She was here, she had already exposed herself. What was a little more humiliation? No one would have to know. The rememberer would not gossip about her heart's-truth to anyone.

“You mean between a protector and a newlyborn?” the rememberer asked.

“Yes,” Jelena whispered.

The rememberer drew a long breath and did not answer immediately. She thought he might not answer at all.

“Emma and Colleen were protector and newlyborn,” he said finally. “They fell in love and pledged themselves.”

Jelena knew this. The two had built a cabin some distance away from the main hall to live their lives out together in mutual love and respect and even now, many years later, people admired and marveled at the deep, abiding love the two women had for one another.

“But Colleen awakened first, didn't she?” Jelena asked. Because the problem was, Jelena hadn't awakened.

The rememberer gave a slow smile and the action transformed his face, making him look less forbidding and more human. “Ay. I remember once when Alaric brewed one of his early batches of ale, Emma told the story of how she thought it was going to take Colleen forever to awaken. Once it happened, Emma let scarce a day go by before declaring her intentions.”

“She should try seven years,” Jelena said. “If she wants to know what forever feels like.”

The smile faded from the old man's lips and he folded his weathered hands in his lap. “Colleen has never been entrusted with any significant duty,” he pointed out.

“The elders have a way of making their point,” Jelena said. But not being entrusted to perform a significant duty seemed a small price to pay. She would pay it; she would gladly pay that price, any price. Would Michael be willing to pay whatever was demanded of him? She twisted the hem of her tunic in her hands. How hard it was to know another's mind, another's heart.

“That one had a happy ending. Most do not, my dear,” the rememberer warned her. “Nora and Kent became lovers, then Kent, who had been Nora's protector, lost his calling. Nora did eventually awaken, but she scorned him then.” One who lost his calling was no better than an unawakened, Jelena knew. If Michael lost his calling, she would never scorn him. Never. Her chest tightened as she thought of Michael in his vestments, his face serene, at peace as he spoke the Way. She hoped that was not the price he was asked to pay.

“Timothy and Isolde had a sad story,” the rememberer went on. “Isolde was Timothy's protector. They became lovers before Timothy awakened — and he never did. One night, he crept out and threw himself to the wolves.”

Jelena had heard the story, how the riders recovered his torn and bloody body a long time later when they went looking. The distraught Isolde, blaming herself because Timothy had never awakened and had despaired, had given up her calling and isolated herself from the others, tending her small garden by the little cabin near the northern fence. She asked nothing from the people, though they left gifts of food and clothing for her when they had them to spare. Michael, she knew, encouraged that. He was a good man and didn't judge others. Sometimes his compassion was mistaken for weakness. Sometimes she made that mistake herself.

Jelena sighed. She knew that newlyborn and protector shouldn't share that most intimate of acts, the deepest of emotions, but if she was going to remain unawakened anyway, where was the risk? She would be in no danger of throwing herself to the wolves if she had Michael.

As if reading her thoughts, the rememberer said, “The law exists to prevent harm to the newlyborn. When Brad and Brette became lovers, they had an emotional fight one day and they both stormed off in anger. Later, Brette experienced her awakening. Unprepared for the reckoning, unprotected, she took leave of her senses. She just stared, eyes wide open and unblinking, day after day, until death took her. Seeing what he had done, Brad hanged himself from a tree just beyond the eastern paddock.”

Jelena shivered. The rememberer was as skilled a raconteur as the storyteller.

“That's awful,” she said. “I hadn't heard of that.”

“The Law protects us,” the rememberer said.

“The Way protects us,” Jelena responded. But even as she said it, she wasn't sure she believed it. The proscriptions and rules of the people, all set out for her own good, constricted and restricted until sometimes she wanted to flee. Only knowing she couldn't leave Michael behind prevented it some days.

The rememberer's eyes were gentle as he looked at her. “Very often the pain of today passes with the coming of tomorrow,” he said kindly.

She covered his hand with her own. Very often, she supposed, the pain of today did pass with the coming of tomorrow. But not always. He of all people knew that. “Thank you,” she said, bending forward to kiss his cheek.

“Child,” he said, and then stopped. She thought he might have been about to give her advice or a platitude but apparently he thought better of it. “Go in the Way,” he said finally.

“I will,” she said, rising to leave. “Here, I will finish this chore.” She had put the rememberer's trash in the wash tub, and now she picked it up to bring it to the midden. She felt his eyes on her as she moved to the door and let herself out. She supposed it would not be too long before he put the blankets back up on the windows.

As she walked along the western fence near the paddock, she saw a sleek gray body twining among the trees. Shading her eyes from the afternoon sun, she watched its elegant movements. She paused, holding her breath, then glanced quickly around; no one was watching. She didn't want to draw attention to the animal and cause unnecessary, uncalled-for panic. She kept the phantom shape in the corner of her eye as she walked to the midden.

Dumping the garbage, she set the tub down and moved quietly to the fence. The wolf stood beyond, in the trees, its breath coming in quick pants. His golden eyes fixed on her but Jelena felt no threat. Intrigued, she made no sudden moves but slipped quietly between the rails of the fence. Now no barrier stood between her and the animal.

The wolf turned and moved through the trees, glancing over its shoulder as if to invite her along. She followed for a few moments, moving deeper among the pines and beeches. Over a rise, the wolf loped off into the trees and disappeared from view.

Disappointed, Jelena stood staring in the direction where the wolf had headed, hands on her hips as she scanned the trees for any sign of movement. Nothing. As if the wolf hadn't existed at all. She caught sight of a patch of mud not far from where she stood. She dropped to her knees to examine the patch of mud more closely. It bore the perfect imprint of the wolf's paw. She spread her fingers and covered the track with her palm. Touching the pawprint made her feel connected to the beautiful creature she had seen. She rocked back on her heels, wishing that the wolf hadn't disappeared so quickly.

She knew her affinity for the wolves terrified the other tribe members; it had no precedent. She'd realized early on that it was best to hide her interest in the animals, but no one was around to censure her now. She looked around in vain for a glimpse of the lithe gray animal. She thought there was a reason the animals followed so close to the main enclosure, and it was not that they were waiting for a chance to devour the weak and unaware, no matter what the elders and the storyteller — and Michael — said.

When she heard the wolves howling in the night, it didn't make her blood run cold as it did the other villagers. She could hear the wolves asking for companionship and shelter, offering protection and love. Had she told the Elders her thoughts they would probably have pronounced the dōm upon her and driven her out, beyond the fence. So she kept her knowledge to herself, hugging it to her heart. She supposed it would be easier if she simply believed the way everyone else did. But she couldn't force herself to believe just by trying.

She got to her feet, brushed off her trousers, then slipped back inside the fence. She retrieved the wash tub from where she'd left it near the midden, intending to bring it back to the rememberer's cabin. She paused as she passed a cluster of trueborns crouched in a circle on the near side of the infirmary. She walked over to the knot of children, moving quietly, but Samuel, Michael's helper, looked up at her approach. Some surprising, wholly unexpected emotion crossed his face — sullenness or anger? — and then he stepped back so she could see what they were doing.