Bloodsongs (8 page)

Teri hesitated, one hand on her pregnant belly. She glanced at Samidar, then at her husband, and drew a deep breath. “Give her something dry to wear,” she told her husband as she headed for the tiny kitchen. “Does she have a horse? We'll help her, but she can't stay here.” At the kitchen entrance she stopped and turned back to face Samidar. “If it was just Amalki and me, I'd do anything I could for you. You've been a good neighbor.” She patted her tummy. “But there's a child to think of now.”

Samidar nodded. “You've risked too much already, and I'm grateful.” She looked to Amalki and reminded him again of the trunk. The longer she stayed in this house, the greater the danger to her friends.

“It's back through here,” he said, picking up an oil lamp.

She followed him into a side room. The lamp suffused the interior with an amber glow that flickered and danced as the wind forced between the uncaulked boards that served for walls and teased the slender flame.

She had not known Amalki was such a collector. Or maybe “scavenger” would have been a better word. The room was full of old tools and utensils, chests, scraps of leather, linens and fabrics she didn't recognize, colored rocks the size of her fists, garments cast in careless piles. There was no order to any of it.

“No, I'm not a thief,” he explained. “I wander the caravan roads. Amazing what they leave behind or what falls unheeded from their wagons. Or sometimes I fix a wheel or mend a harness, and they pay me with goods.”

“You should open a shop in Dashrani,” she said.

“Don't want to live in the city,” he answered disdainfully. “But when the baby comes I'll probably have to sell some of it.”

She spotted her possessions scattered about. There were her cook pots and a keg of her best beer. “Drink that,” she advised. “It will spoil quickly back here.” There were some of her skirts and Kirigi's
dumbeki
. She ran her fingers over that, remembering. There were other items of Kirigi's. She did her best to ignore them all. At last, she found her trunk half-covered by the carpets that had lined the floor of her small sleeping room.

“You didn't miss much,” she said solemnly.

Amalki shrugged. “There was lots more, but the sergeant was impatient.”

Samidar swept the carpets aside and lifted the trunk's lid. “Bring that light closer,” she said, kneeling. “Then for Teri's sake you'd better leave me alone to change.”

Amalki placed the lamp on a shelf where it could shine on the trunk's contents. “For Teri's sake,” he said with a barely concealed smirk, “or for mine?”

She waited until he was gone. When she was alone she sank back with a sigh and leaned one arm on the old trunk. She felt like crying again, but there were no tears left. Instead, she listened to the rain as it smashed against the thin wooden walls, and she rubbed her arms and shoulders. It was cold in the drafty room.

At last, she gathered her courage and bent over the rim. She emptied the trunk item by item, memory by memory. Here was the shawl Kimon had given her years ago, with its bright embroidery and pearls sewn along the edges. Here was the blanket that covered them that first night in their inn. Another blanket followed, the one Kimon had wrapped so proudly around his newborn son. There were a few garments under that. She set everything aside with tenderness. Amalki had no conception how much she was giving him or what she was leaving behind. He wouldn't treat these things with much care. Maybe that was why she took her time.

As she reached the bottom of the old trunk she found the things she sought. The clothes were worn, folded and bound into a bundle with a belt. She set them close at hand, separate from the other pile she had made of her memories, and reached back into the trunk.

Her sword lay within. The leather sheath was battered and scratched, but the lamplight gleamed on the keen edge as she exposed a short length of blade. The smell of oil touched her nostrils, a bit of lubricant to protect the steel from rust. She slid the blade back home and regarded the unadorned hilt; the wrapping was dulled with the clear print of her hand.

She cradled the weapon in the crook of her arm almost as if it were a child. A slow sigh escaped her lips as she leaned it against the trunk.

A pair of boots came out next, once supple but now stiff from disuse.

All that remained in the trunk was a circlet of twisted silver. The metal was tarnished with age and neglect, but nothing dimmed the polished moonstone inset. Long ago a good friend had given it to her. Samidar gathered her hair, put the damp mass through the circlet, and balanced it on her brow. She traced around the setting, recalling how much it resembled a third eye when seen in the right light or from the proper angle. It was one of her dearest treasures.

She rose, wincing at the tingle of returning circulation in her legs. Slowly, almost ritualistically, she peeled off her wet tunic and untied the strings that held her skirts around her waist. They fell around her feet, and she stepped free. She had no more use for them but to wipe the mud from between her toes. With a peculiar frown she realized she must have tracked filth over Teri's floor.

Lastly, she removed the jeweled halter she had worn all this time under her tunic. She'd had no chance to remove it since that night of dancing at the inn. So much had happened so fast. She laid it carefully aside, watching the light glimmer on the gems and gilt threads.

Samidar closed the lid to her trunk. She gazed then at the belted bundle at her feet and finally bent to pick it up. Unfastening the belt, she shook the folded items loose.

A sense of time suddenly distorted swept over her. She pulled on trousers of thin gray leather; the thighs were worn smooth from riding. There was a jacket-styled tunic; the belt wrapped around her twice and held it closed, and the sleeves fastened close at the wrists. It was also gray, but made of softer linen. She stamped her feet into the black boots; over twenty years unused, they were a bit tight, but she knew they would stretch with wear. A cloak remained, and a pair of gloves, all of fine gray leather. She tucked the gloves into her belt and draped the cloak over one arm.

She reached for her sword. The sheath had its own weapon belt. She fastened it around her hips. After so long, the weight of it felt awkward. She adjusted it several times before giving up.

Suddenly she covered her face with her hands, overpowered by a sense of her own age. The sword had been made for her by a man long dead. The friend who had given her the circlet also was dead. The garments belonged to someone else, another Samidar, a much younger and wilder woman.

Samidar with another name.

The name echoed in her head; her lips mouthed the word. She forced herself to utter it. Only the barest whisper came out, and she made herself say it out loud until she knew the name was hers once again.

She picked up the halter and gave a last look at her neatly ordered pile of memories. In a few days they would be mingled with the rest of Amalki's treasures, just more junk in a room full of junk. It was not easy to turn her back on twenty-three years of her life. But she did, taking the lamp with her, abandoning it all to darkness.

Amalki and Teri were in close conversation before the fireplace. The warm log fire seemed to create a crimson halo around Teri's belly as if to emphasize the femininity that Samidar was forever surrendering. They stopped when they noticed her. Amalki started to speak again, then stared at her garb.

“Samidar—“

She cut him off with a curt gesture. “My name is Frost.” The name sounded distant to her ears, as though it drifted across a lifetime before leaving her lips.

Amalki swallowed. He pointed to her sword. “Do you have any idea how to use that?”

She peered at him, and an inner voice told her she should laugh. Yet a door had closed on her heart, leaving a void where her emotions had been. She felt his concern, and a part of her was grateful for it. But she couldn't respond to it.

“What are you going to do?” Teri asked uncertainly from the mantel.

Frost looked at her. The young woman's voice was silky and deep, and their gazes met unflinchingly across the room. Teri was beautiful. Had she been as beautiful when she was pregnant with Kel? By the next new moon, Amalki had said, they would have the child.

She approached Teri and held out the halter. “If you have a daughter, then this is for her. Teach her to dance, Teri. Nothing matters, but to dance. All of nature is a dance.” She reached out gingerly with her other hand and touched the bulging tummy, feeling the life within. Teri allowed it with a kind of unshakable calm.

Frost looked over her shoulder at Amalki. “If it's a boy,” she instructed, “then sell the jewels and buy him a sword. The best you can find. All of nature is a dance, but all of life is a struggle. Dancing and fighting—two sides of the same coin.”

Teri touched the hand that still rested on her belly, drawing Frost's gaze back. “You talk as if you expect to die.”

She smiled at that and pulled her hand away. “You're young, Teri. You don't like to think about it yet, but we all die. You and me, Amalki, even the child in your body. No, don't curse me with such a mean look. Ask your husband; he was a soldier. He knows what death is.” She turned around. “Tell her, Amalki.”

But he only shrugged, looked askance.

“Well, no matter. You still have a long life ahead of you.” She pushed the halter into Teri's reluctant hands. “But not if I'm found here or if anyone learns you've sheltered me. So, it's time to go.” She patted the sword on her hip and ran a hand over her clothing. “I've got what I came back for.” She headed toward the door.

“Wait,” Teri called. She lifted a small cloth sack from the floor near the fireplace. “Here's food. I hope it's enough to see you safely away.”

Frost took the bag, then hugged the giver. “Never touch your man's weapons,” she whispered to Teri as they embraced. “Grow old and wrinkled from motherhood and farm work, and find your happiness in that. I did for a short time.”

She broke away and shouldered her meager supply. “Don't follow me out, Amalki. Stay here and hold your pretty wife. I think I've upset her.” When Amalki made to protest, she shushed him. “I can saddle my own horse. I've had more experience at this sort of thing than you can guess.” She forced a smile. If only he knew what his neighbor had been in other times and other lands! “I'll close the barn doors tight so your mare won't get cold.” She lifted the lock bar from its brackets, but she held the front door shut and turned back. “You've been good friends. I'm going to miss you.” She pulled the door open.

“Would you mind if I named my son Kirigi?” Amalki called suddenly.

She froze, half-out into the night. “Don't,” she answered in a near whisper. “Kirigi is dead.”

She shut the door behind her then, before any more could be said, and ran out into the dark and the rain.

 

 

 

Chapter Five

 

For two days the hills and lowlands of Keled-Zaram rolled before her, carpeted with lush, damp greenery. Here and there patches of tiny yellow fireglows and white starflowers, petals shimmering with thick dew, filled the moist air with the odors of early summer. Yet the weather was autumnal. A wispy mist hugged the low places, stirred and drifted with a ghostly grace, pushed by the currents of every random breeze.

The sky lay like a bleak shroud over the land, featureless and oppressive. Even the sunlight seemed to shrivel into itself until nothing shone but a pale, milky hole in the gray heavens.

Frost pulled her sodden cloak tighter at the throat, dropped her head a bit lower between slumped shoulders, too miserable to curse. The constant drizzle soaked her to the skin; a thin stream of water dribbled from the tip of her nose, over her lip, off her chin. Her thighs were stiff, chafed from rubbing on wet saddle leather. The chill breeze conjured gooseflesh until she thought her entire body would finally draw into one shivering bump.

Nor was her poor horse any happier. If possible, its shoulders slumped more than hers. It carried its nose nearly to the ground, its matted mane thick and heavy and dripping. It plodded along over the slick grass and mud, sometimes stumbling, sometimes stopping out of sheer despair until she nudged or kicked its flanks to get it moving once more. She pitied the beast as it trembled beneath her, yet there was nothing for either of them but to keep moving.

No tree gave shelter, for the branches and leaves rilled with rain. She passed no farmhouse, no village. Water clung to her lashes, but she kept her eyes on the dim horizon.

When darkness at last fell, she dismounted in the lee of a hillock, gathered her cloak and hood about her as tightly as possible, and sat down in the wetness. With the reins wrapped securely about one hand, she rested her head on her knees, locked fingers around her legs, and waited, too numb to think, empty of emotion.

She dozed in fits. The first hints of another gray dawn roused her, and she rose and climbed in the saddle again. At least the rain had stopped. She took a strip of dried meat from Amalki's sack and chewed without tasting.

The sun held no promise of warmth; the clouds looked swollen and menacing as ever.

The sun's zenith found her at the bank of a treacherous, rain-engorged stream. Its waters churned, carving chunks of thick mud and tufts of grass, sweeping them swiftly out of sight. Yet it was not too deep, for a bubbling white froth marked where a trio of stones poked above the surface.

She chewed her lip; her thoughts turned back.

It had been a much smaller stream those twenty and more years ago, barely a trickle. With Kimon, she had stopped to drink here, perhaps at this very spot. Ashur had been with her then, that huge, beautiful black unicorn, who had carried her through half a dozen wars and more adventures than she remembered. He, too, had once drunk from this stream. If she let herself, she could almost see Ashur's
 
unearthly eyes. They had not been true eyes at all, but twin pools of flame that flickered, burned, yet gave no heat . . . . They haunted her, those eyes. She saw them in her dreams, in her nightmares. Even now she felt an emptiness, an unending ache, when she thought of them.