Winter Moon (24 page)

Clirando knew no fear, no doubt, and no reticence. She thought idly, as she bounded earthward,
This is the truth.

But somewhere, something—oh, it was like a vagrant cloud, feathery and adrift. It bloomed out from nowhere. It poured around her. Zemetrios was concealed. She half turned, missing him, and then a delicate nothingness enveloped her. That too brought no alarm. It was also too good, too
true.

And after only a second anyway it was done.

And then—

“Clirando!”

This known female face bending to hers, someone well liked, familiar—

“Tuyamel?”

Clirando's eyes were clearing. She stared into six
faces now, all known, all in their way loved. Her girls, the women of her band.

“Lie still, Cliro,” said Tuy firmly. “You've flown such a great way off, and had such a long journey back.”

 

They were sworn to secrecy, they assured her, all of them. No one who came here must ever afterward speak of the secrets of Moon Isle. Besides, they knew very little.

“Certain persons—they go to certain places. The priests—and the gods—direct them. Some even go—so we heard—to the moon itself. And you went somewhere, Cliro. That's what they said.”

Her band told her how, the morning after they had beached their boat on the strand of the Isle, they had found her unconscious, and had not been able to rouse her. Though she breathed, she seemed all but dead. And so they picked her up on a litter improvised from cloaks, and bore her inland.

An ancient priestess by a beacon on the cliff top declared Clirando had suffered no awful harm. “She has not slept a while,” the priestess said. “Now she must.”

So Clirando's loyal girls carried her, with much care and attention, to one of the seven inland villages of the island.

“Every night of the full moon you lay here,” lamented Seleti.

“We tried to wake you—the moon
was
full for seven nights!”—Draisis—“But you never stirred.”

“And the old priest, the one with the pet snakes he names after jewels—he said we must let you
slumber. You were so young, he said,” affrontedly added Erma, “you would certainly see in your lifetime several more such seasons of seven moons.”

“You missed all the festivities,” elaborated Oani.

“Jugglers—magicians—” Vlis.

“One of them made a bridge over the sky, all like precious stones—green, red, mauve, yellow—Tuyamel. “Though
I
knew it was all a trick.”

Clirando lay on the narrow pallet, in the cell of the temple in Seventh Village.

Her heart beat leadenly.

It had been—
all
of it—a dream?

And yet, she had been enabled to throw away the negative and hateful things. Only proper grief and regret remained. Except…Zemetrios.

If all this had been a dream—including even, as it had, transcripts of actual external things—what had
Zemetrios
been? His thoughts, his personality—his mouth, his arms?

She lay a few days in the little Temple of the Maiden. Then, when she had recovered enough, Clirando roamed through its courts, admiring columns and the flowering vines on its walls—for summer had continued uninterrupted in the world. Here and there, meeting others, she mentioned a particular name. “Zemetrios?” they asked, the mild priestesses. “Warrior,” they said to her, not unkindly, “no one may be told anything more than the minimum of any other here. This is Moon Isle. For those like yourself, or the man you mention, what each does and experiences is a private matter. Only they and the gods can know.”

So they would tell her nothing. And was there anything to learn?

Everything else had been her dream, so why not this golden man? She had wanted a lover. Tranced or asleep she had had one.

And now she knew for sure she loved him? Well then. She loved a figment of her dreams. She would not be the first or last.

Two days following the celebration of the Seven Nights, which all of them repeatedly reminded her she had missed, Clirando walked around the village.

It was not at all like the one she had seen when asleep. The buildings were clean and garishly painted. The three or four temples were garlanded, and that of the Maiden had walls of deep red patterned with silver crescents.

Just as she had heard, priests and priestesses thronged the Isle, and lingering warrior bands were there too, traders and performers, but now the processions and shows were over. A great packing up was going on. A great leave-taking.

And neither was it any use to question these people, let alone the villagers, who seemed educated in coy evasions. There seemed too a polite, unspoken wish that visitors should go. It began to make her band uneasy, and soon enough Clirando, as well.

I threw off my guilt. I must throw off this also.

She slept always soundly at night. She did not dream, she thought, at all, as if she had used all her dreaming up. Would she ever see the ghost of Araitha
again? Or him—would she ever see Zemetrios again? No. Never.

On the fourth day they set off along the forest track. It was rather as Clirando had visualized it, but then her girls had carried her this way. Now animals and birds abounded. A statue marked either end of the road, island gods, nicely carved. Clirando thrust her introspection from her. She acted out being her ordinary self, calling it back to her. It came.

Meanwhile her girls were so attentive and careful of her that Clirando eventually lost her temper. “Leave off treating me like some fragile shard of ancient pottery! What will you do on the boat? Wrap a shawl over my legs and pat me on the head?”

There under the sun-sparkling pines, she wrestled Tuyamel and Vlis, and threw them both, and hugged them all. They danced about there, laughing, embracing, loud and boisterous as eleven-year-olds.

Next day they reached the shore and rowed out to the galley. By sunfall they were on the way to Amnos, and life as they remembered it.

Paper

T
he windblown sky was full of birds that morning.

Summer had stayed late in Amnos, giving way at last to a harsh, bleached winter.

Now spring tides freshened the coast, and men and beasts were casting the torpor of the cold months.

Clirando had been with Eshti, her old servant woman, to the fish market, and coming back Eshti bolted straight to the kitchen with her prizes. Clirando climbed up to the roof of her house. She was watching the antics of the house doves circling over the courtyard trees.

And out of her inner eyes, from nowhere, Araitha came, and stood silent in her mind. Clirando recalled how she had stood in the yard too laying her curse, then turning away from shadow to light to shadow—or had it been light to shadow to light….

Unlike her companion, her dream lover, Clirando had had no dialogue with her dead friend to set anything right between them.

Araitha therefore might always haunt her. No longer injurious, only bitter. It could not be helped. At least her curse was spent.

All winter Clirando had carried on her life as she had in the past. If her mood was sometimes uneven, she hid it. Mourning the loss of a dead comrade was one thing, but to mourn the loss of someone who had not been
real
was wretched and bewildering. Sometimes she even mocked herself. But now—now it was spring.

Clirando turned. Eshti had come up on the roof, puffing from the steps, wiping fish scales off on her apron.

“What now?” Clirando inquired. “Has dinner swum away?”

“No, lady. The priestesses of Parna have sent for you.”

Clirando's thoughts scattered apart and back together in concern. She sprang downstairs to fetch her cloak.

 

In the shrine by the main temple hall, one of the two priestesses who received Clirando was the middle-aged woman who had dispatched her to the Isle.

Clirando saluted both of them. She said, “Have I committed some error, Mothers?”

The two of them gazed at Clirando. Only the older priestess smiled. “Not at all. There are matters which
have just come to our attention. Now spring has driven the ice from the harbors, ships are moving, and letters have arrived in Amnos.”

Clirando nodded. Though familiar with books, she had seldom seen a letter. Next moment she saw two. Normally they would be of folded cloth, written on, then waxed. Both of these letters were of fine paper, made from Lybirican reeds.

“A ship's captain brought them here this morning,” said the other priestess. “One is for you, Clirando. The other—”

“The other was sent to us by one of the Wise Women of Moon Isle. She is over a hundred years of age, but she lives sometimes in a hut on a headland, and still she weaves cloth, for her eyes stay clear and her fingers agile.”

“I met her,” said Clirando. She checked. “Or thought I did.”

“The Wise Woman—she has no other name—says that something has come to her notice about a warrior girl, Clirando she is called, who was sent to the Isle to work out some inner tussel. The gods allowed her the trance of profound sleep which the Isle can give, and in the sleep various adventures, by means of which her trouble was healed. However,” the priestess paused. And Clirando's heart paused within her. “It seems, during this time, Clirando showed strong evidence of being herself a healer and a spiritual guide.”

Shocked, Clirando interrupted. “
No
, Mother—I did nothing like that—”

Ignoring her, gently the priestess went on, “Al
though personal experiences on the Isle are not generally spoken of, there are two exceptions to this rule. Firstly, as perhaps you will guess, anyone may speak in secret to a priest of their own experience. This recital may naturally include mention of others who have—or who have seemed to have—been part of it. The priests, though they will answer no direct question, will nevertheless, should it be needful, afterwards pass on any insight to those others who have shared the event, providing, and this is the second exception, the insight is sufficiently profound. And so: A man, a soldier formerly with the Rhoian legions, reported the events to the Temple of the Father on the Isle. He too had been sent there to work out some penance and guilt and sorrow, and he too had the god's trance fall on him. The priests cared for him in this sleep, as it is always done, just as the priestesses cared for you, Clirando. But when he woke, he had an unusual story to tell. It seems he found himself in a forest, and there he met a young woman, who engaged his interest at once, being, he freely says, for him the perfect type of woman, both a warrior and a girl of great grace.” The priestess smiled again, peered into one of the paper letters, and read aloud: “‘Also blessed with a passionate clear mindedness.'” The priestess allowed the letter to fall closed once more. “It seems too, that in this dream he had, and which apparently he shared with her, the woman he describes so admiringly—and whose name he gives as Clirando—that she gave him to understand she was not averse to his person. At the
conclusion of their journey, she assisted him further, guiding him forward, as he describes, through a magical gateway, and so on to the mystic plains of the moon itself. Here his own difficulty was resolved, but once again Clirando remained at his side, helping him always. Now, we hear of visits to the moon, which may happen on the Isle—how else did it come by its name?—but they are rare. He insists that, had it not been for the woman, he himself would never have got there, and so never confronted what he must. Finally, when all was done, she—” the priestess again consulted the paper “—summoned a path of stars and led him home by that route to the world. But—to his horror—he lost her on the way.” The priestess folded the paper into her sleeve. She looked at Clirando. “Do you know anything of this?”

Clirando could not speak.

Then words came. “He is called Zemetrios?”

“So he is. I note your heart is full of love for him. That is the Maiden's gift to you, then. But it takes much more than love alone to work the magic you have done, my girl. And so it transpires the Maiden gave you another gift, too. For you are a healer and guide, as he has said. No, don't shake your head. Of course you have made mistakes and blunders on this occasion. It was your first excursion into such realms. You will need training, as tough and demanding as any you've known in the fighter's art. You stumbled on your gift, which till now you never knew you had. But this man Zemetrios is no fool. He insists you possess psychic powers. He has con
vinced the Wise Women. That's enough for us. Such talents must never be denied.”

“Then—”

“Then, as I've said, you shall be taught. You will still be a warrior, but to one trade will be added another.”

“But—Mother—I—”

“Now, sit on the bench there and read this second letter, which has come only for you. The ship's captain has said he wishes a moment with you then. He's in the Little Fountain Courtyard. No doubt he expects to be rewarded for bringing such costly paper all this distance.”

Clirando found she had sat down. She sat with the second letter unopened. All she could see or think was filled only by one face, one name. He was real, he lived, and knew her. She had guided him unknowing through forest and mountain and otherworld, her lover, her beloved, Zemetrios. And their lovemaking—though experienced in a dream—had in some manner taken place, for both. Yet now—he mentioned nothing of meeting her again—

The flame flicked before the statue of the goddess. Her green eyes blinked, or it was only a trick of the light.

Clirando broke the wax seal on the second letter, her mind blank as a paper never written on.

And read this:

The letter fluttered from Clirando's fingers. The motion reminded her of a dove's wings.

Araitha lived. Araitha lived and was herself again. A hot blameless joy burned through Clirando. Standing up, she cried aloud, there in the shrine, naming the gods. It was not blasphemy, but a paean of gratitude. As such, it seemed, the goddess Parna at least received it.

 

When she went out to the fountain courtyard, she had all her money left from the market wrapped ready in a cloth to tip the captain. He had brought her such news.

The man was standing by the little fountain, looking down at the golden fish swimming about in the tank. For a ship's captain he was well dressed and very well groomed, his blond hair gleaming with cleanness in the spring sunshine.

When he looked up, she saw that he had grown as pale as she had.

Clirando mastered herself.

“So, you're a liar after all.”

“No lies. By the gods, Cliro, trance or waking, I never lied to you once. And if I never wrote any love words upon the moon, I scarcely had time, did I? Or are you angry I delayed in finding you? For a while I could hardly even be certain you were real. By the hour I'd convinced myself, winter had closed the seas.”

“I mean, Zem,” she said, “you lied today, when you told them you were the captain of a ship.”

“But I am. I'd sold my father's house, remember, and given up my legion. So. I bought a ship. What better means to come here? I've worked on ships be
fore in my soldier's travels, I know them well enough. This one's a fine one. She's called the
Brown Warrior
. I named her after you with your tan skin and your acorn hair.”

Clirando felt the yard, the town and the world draw far off from her. She stood in space, somewhere between sky and earth, and he stood facing her there, and they were alone together.

“Well,” he said, “you helped save my mind and my soul on the Isle. But if I only
dreamed
you liked me, you must tell me to go. I warn you though—”

“You'll get drunk. Stay sober, Zemetrios. Stay with me.”

He crossed the court in three strides and took her in his arms as she took him in hers.

They muttered into each other's mouths and necks and hair what lovers mutter at such times.

It had been an irony, he said, that as he set off to seek her in Amnos, being one of the first ships out, it was he who ended up carrying with him the report of his own letter of her healing skills. As for her letter from Araitha, he was amazed when Clirando told him what it was.

He did not ask if she would ever seek for Araitha in the future. Nor did Clirando ask herself. The gods who had, it seemed, allowed all this, might one day advise her by some sign.

Four giggling novice priestesses, coming to feed the fish, dislodged the couple in the court.

So then they walked to her house down the winding streets.

Eshti showed great approval at the houseguest.

“We shall have the best candles,” she told them, “and the glass goblets from the chest.”

“Eshti decides these things,” said Clirando.

“So I see. That's good. It will leave you more time to concentrate on me.”

“But when must you sail?”

“When I want. I'm my own man.”

She thought,
He'll ride his ship across those treacherous seas, those waters of gales and drowning.
She thought,
We are both fighters. Neither can curb the other's life. The gods brought us together. Perhaps they will keep us together, now.

The spring dusk came early. Up in the yard trees, the house doves were already arranging their nests. Which signified it would be a forward spring and summer. When the candles were lit, the polished glasses filled, she sat with him and they ate supper as if they had done so for twenty years. Tonight they would share the bed in her chamber. Where she had watched, sleepless, the unsleeping moon, now she would see him, and herself reflected in his gaze. Now she would see a future.