Red Mantle Read online

  Every house offered me moonshine. It is not too strong, only slightly stronger than wine, but I had eaten nothing since my morning porridge and ended up as intoxicated as at the feast after Moon Dance. I was grateful for Gray Lady’s back to lean on when I reemerged into the cool spring evening. I may have sung a little. I longed to head home, but one salt pouch remained. So I walked around the corner to the final house, the annex built for Tauer and his aged father when Tauer became too old to work the land and his son took over the farm. I sang the “Song of the Bear,” which we always sing at every festival and naming ceremony, in praise of the wise bear who watches over us. It felt like the natural thing to sing. I thought about how much I love my village, and the people in it, even though I feel like an outsider right now. They may see me as something other, something different, but no one has shown me anything but kindness since I returned home. And it is painful to see how hard their lives have become. I do not remember it being quite this hard when I was little, but perhaps I have simply forgotten. I see deterioration; I see hollow cheeks. I see children ten years old laboring as hard as their parents, and I want to offer them something better—something more. The absolute worst thing I see is resignation. They believe that this is how life is, and how it always will be, indeed how it should be. I must show them something else. I must open a window in their world, but I do not know how.

  I knocked and entered through the unpainted door.

  I had never been inside Tauer’s and his father’s home before. The only house in Jóla I ever visited as a child was Péra’s, because we sometimes played together. But I know Tauer—everybody in these villages knows him. Tauer is the one people go to when they have a festering wound, or a stubborn wart, or relentless pain, or a husband straying from the marital bed. Tauer has concoctions and prescriptions for everything. He helps to bring new lives into this world and accompanies others out when their time comes. He is full of superstitions, and the folk around here swallow them willingly. They believe warts can be removed by rubbing them with vole skin soaked in saltwater under a full moon at a crossroads, and that it is even more effective if done at a crossroads in a different village from one’s own. They believe that a woman can change the sex of her unborn child by walking under a rainbow. They believe that they can ensure a good harvest by baking a bread from rye, corn, salt and honey in the shape of a five-pointed star, blessing it in running water, smoke and dust, and then burying it in a field.

  They have so many delusions that I will hardly know where to begin when I eventually come to teach them the truth of how the world works.

  Tauer’s home was not like I imagined. Herbs and rye bread were hanging from the rafters to dry. The straw on the floor was clean and fresh. There was a small table and two carved wooden chairs, and a wall-mounted bed with embroidered curtains. There were bright copper pots hanging on the wall and a shelf lined with bowls and jugs of mysterious contents. It could have been any ordinary farmhouse. Lying in bed was Tauer’s father, an old man as wrinkled and crinkled as laundry that has been crumpled up and left to dry. A small black-haired girl sat under the table rattling around with a pot and a wooden spoon, accompanied by two brown hens. Tauer was standing by the stove on the other side of the room, busy with some task or other. He is an old man, older than Father, but still has a straight back and more brown than gray in his beard, which he keeps neat and trim. He is short and stocky but not fat. He reminds me of a little bear.

  I was sleepy after all that moonshine. Sleepy and hungry. A quick horn of moonshine and then home. I would ride the mule, so I could half-sleep throughout the journey.

  “So, here you are at last!” Tauer’s voice was dry and warm, like a hill in summer heat.

  “At last?”

  “Yes.” Tauer wiped his hands clean. “We’ve been waiting, haven’t we, Father?” He spoke in the direction of the bed, and a rustling sound came in response. “We knew you’d come, sooner or later, but we understood perfectly well that you had your own matters to see to. Unbound hair too, I see. But that shouldn’t really come as a surprise.”

  I sighed. I had to hear about my hair even from Tauer. Why should it matter so much that I do not braid it like the other girls?

  Tauer took down a bundle of herbs from a rafter, lifted a small pot from the hearth and crumbled the herbs inside. A fresh scent spread through the room. The girl under the table banged on her pot, causing the hens to cluck nervously. Tauer made small talk as he expertly plucked various jars and packages from the shelf and added an array of ingredients into his pot.

  “Custom doesn’t dictate moonshine, you know. Only that a guest be offered a beverage, and that the host then drinks from the same receptacle.” He poured the contents into a wooden bowl and came over to me. “Drink now. You need it.”

  I sipped at the hot drink. It was sweet and bitter.

  “Honey?”

  “Wild honey. And mint and wandflower and fir sprigs and a few other bits.”

  I thought of Sister Nar and her brews. Tauer pulled out a chair for me and shooed the hens away.

  “They should be out in the pen with the goats and my daughter-in-law’s hens,” he said, and looked at them with concern. “But they’re so attached to me that they refuse to lay eggs anywhere else. And Father needs his eggs, don’t you, Father?” He lowered his voice. “It’s practically the only thing I can get him to eat these days. Raw eggs.”

  I held out my bowl and he took it, sniffing the air around me as he did so.

  “It is lavender,” I said. “From Menos.” I still have bunches of dried lavender between my clean clothes in the chest at the foot of my bed.

  “Lavender?” Tauer looked at me with an expression I could not interpret. “Indeed. I’d never have thought it.”

  The hot drink was very refreshing and my head soon felt clearer.

  “Will you not invite your daughter to drink as well?” I asked, and pointed under the table.

  Tauer laughed.

  “Oh no, she’s my son’s youngest. But it’s such a bustling din in their house that I often bring her here. She likes a little peace and quiet, does Naeri.” The girl punctuated this point by banging the pot again, causing the hens to cluck and the old man to groan in his bed. “Do you know how many grandchildren I have, Maresi Enresdaughter? Ten! Seven of whom are in this village. Three children was enough for me, but they spawn like anything. In any case, the drink is too strong for her, you understand.”

  I fished out the salt pouch. He looked pleased when I handed it to him.

  “An excellent gift. Powerful. Not everybody got an embroidered snake, I hope?”

  “No. Shells, apples, roses, all sorts of things.”

  “Good. I would have chosen something longer-lasting than salt, but at least they’ll all make use of it.”

  I stared at him.

  “As will I,” he hastened to add.

  I was so confused that I hardly knew what to say. “I am planning on starting a school in the autumn,” was the first thing I could think of.

  Tauer leaned back in his chair and furrowed his brow. One of the hens flapped onto his lap.

  “There’s much to be done first. Will you manage?”

  This irked me. Nobody seems to understand how important this school is, not for me, but for the girls of the villages! They think that sowing and reaping and embroidery and daily chores are all that matter. I stood up abruptly.

  “Thank you for letting me rest awhile. And thank you for the tea. Now night is approaching and I must return home.”

  “Are you walking?”

  Anger prevented me from honoring Tauer with a reply. I no longer felt in the least bit tired, only irate. I said a short farewell, left the house and called to Gray Lady. Naturally she did not come, and I had to walk around the house to look for her. I found her munching on a few strands of straw next to a shaggy gray goat. She was extremely reluctant to leave her new friend, and when I finally managed to lead her to the gate in the farmyard fence
I saw Tauer standing there and watching, so I could not mount her. I had to push her through the gate instead.

  “Go straight, go strong,” Tauer called after me.

  I stomped away, angry and irritated. Nobody understands the importance of the school. Nobody understands that I am doing it for their own good!

  I heard the old man start singing the “Song of the Bear” behind me. He came to the verse about the bear’s wrath:

  And her jaws snapped at the fiend

  And her claws ripped into his flesh

  And her steps caused the ground to tremble

  And no one dared approach her lair

  I started humming along involuntarily, and then found myself singing the most fiery of the verses all the way home. I even threw in a few lines of my own about the Crone’s ice-cold wrath and dreadful vengeance. When I arrived back home I was surprised that the walk had passed so quickly, and I gave Gray Lady straw to chew on and ate a bowl of porridge myself before crawling into bed. I slept a deep and dreamless sleep, but have felt a little drowsy and lethargic today. I hope I am not getting a chill. Spring chills are always so drawn out.

  Tomorrow I will head out into the forest to bring home the wood Akios has chopped, and I need to be fresh and alert for that. I will write more again soon! Please remember to tell Geja stories about me, so she does not forget me.

  Your friend,

  My dear Ennike Rose!

  Today, as Akios and I were out collecting wood in the forest, I met a most peculiar person.

  We rose at daybreak and ate yesterday’s cold porridge while Mother packed us a small lunch. I went out before my brother and tied the panniers to Gray Lady’s back. I was excited—how I had been looking forward to getting out into the forest! Mother has kept me cooped up at home too long, and I have missed the trees and fresh air and silence. Akios came out carrying his ax and our food package, and off we went.

  It was a pleasure to walk side by side with my brother at dawn, into the forest to the east. Akios is one of the few people whose behavior toward me has not changed in all these years. Father looks at me with excessive admiration, I think, and Mother’s thoughts are something of a mystery to me. Sometimes she is warm and joyful and all is as it was before I left, but she dislikes it when I talk about the time I spent away, about the Abbey or anything that happened there. Whenever I bring it up she immediately grows quiet and withdraws. Náraes is cordial, but absent and occupied with her children and her own problems. We cannot have the same relationship as we used to, because she is not the same person as she used to be. Perhaps neither am I, though I feel like exactly the same Maresi I have always been—which is strange, if I think about it. I have opened the door to the Crone’s realm. I have sacrificed my very blood to sate the Crone’s hunger. I have been inducted into knowledge and mysteries unimaginable to these people. Still, I feel just as lost and confused as I did on my arrival at Menos, when I understood nothing and always did everything wrong. I seem to have forgotten how to live in Sáru, and even though this lifestyle is in my blood, and has been since birth, it feels as though little of its influence remains. I am different, and no one will let me forget it. They do not speak to me in the same way as they speak to each other. They show me respect, as one does a scholar, but at the same time they treat me as though I am ignorant of the things that truly matter. I am not a foreign weed, but neither am I a grain of rye among the others. I am . . . no, I know not what I am, Ennike Rose, my friend, and it is very difficult.

  But Akios’s way with me is the same as ever. He teases me as before, and turns to me with questions and worries as before. He may be standing on the threshold of manhood, but he still behaves like a little boy. A boy who works hard. We walked on either side of Gray Lady’s head and listened to the birds singing in that way they do only at dawn and dusk. We saw animals as well: long-eared hares; an earth fox poking out of its burrow at the edge of a ditch; voles that darted out of the way of Gray Lady’s hooves. Above our heads a flock of cranes flew north, sounding their solitary calls to one another. I believe I also heard the harsh cry of a kite. Perhaps the same kite I heard before.

  “Remember when we wanted to catch an earth fox to tame it and teach it to catch mice?” asked Akios. I laughed.

  “We were going to hire it out to all the villages and get rich!”

  “It would have worked as well, if you weren’t petrified at the sight of a little blood.”

  “It nearly bit your thumb off! Náraes was close to fainting when we came home.”

  “Ah, my thumb was fine,” said Akios with a grin, waving his left hand in my face. A smooth scar gleamed at the base of his thumb. “You were always too easily frightened by small things.”

  “You can talk! Remember how you screamed when you thought Mother had burned the wooden horse Father whittled for you?”

  “That was no small thing! Been breaking it in for months, I had. A spirited stallion who shunned me at first, but then became my trusty steed.”

  “What was it you called it? Steel Tail?”

  “Silvertail, actually. Yours was called something stupid, like Apple Sauce.”

  “Apple Blossom.” I smiled at the memory. I had named her after the most beautiful thing I could think of. Akios and I used to have a lot of fun with our horses. I sat steeped in pleasant memories, and his next question took me by surprise.

  “Do you ever think about Anner?”

  “Yes, of course.” I glanced at him. “Often. Not every day, perhaps, but almost.”

  “I think about her constantly, but sometimes it feels as though nobody else does.”

  “Do the family not speak of her?”

  He shook his head. “It makes Father too sad.”

  “I think . . . he feels guilty. He believes it was his fault, because he was unable to scrape together enough decent food. But of course it was not his fault. It was those seeds we were given by the nádor—they were bad. I do not know if you can remember the smell, but they were completely black. We all got sick from them, but little Anner was so small and weak to begin with.”

  “I’ve always thought it was my fault.”

  “How could it be your fault?”

  “Mother had some cheese hidden away, did you know that?”

  I shook my head. Akios gazed out into the forest, where the first morning rays were beginning to filter through the trees.

  “I saw her hide a round, yellow cheese in an old pot on the highest shelf. I don’t know how she got it—there certainly wasn’t anything to buy in the village. I was so hungry, and one night while everyone was asleep I crept up and took it. I was only planning on cutting off a little morsel, but when I tasted the salty, fatty cheese I just couldn’t stop myself.” Akios swallowed, as if he could still taste it on his tongue. “Mother never mentioned it. But I’ve often thought that that cheese could have saved Anner’s life.”

  I did not answer straightaway. I thought about it. “When was this?”

  “A few days before she died.”

  I laid an arm around my brother’s shoulders. “Akios, she was already sick with diarrhea by then. Nothing she ate stayed inside her. I have learned a little about starvation and such things during my years at the Abbey. We did not know it at the time, none of us did, but the Crone—by which I mean death—had already set her sights on her.” I thought about the Crone’s shining door that appeared in our house during those days. I had thought that it was me she wanted. But Anner was the one she was waiting for. Anner was already dying.

  “Are you sure?” Akios did not look at me, but his tensed shoulders relaxed a little.

  “Entirely sure.”

  I did not want to think about Anner any longer, or about how I might have been to blame for her death. Would the Crone have taken me instead, had I offered myself in place of my little sister? The Crone did want to take me later, except she did not demand I come; she invited me.

  We entered the shade of the tallest tree in the forest, where the light and so
undscape shifted. It became damper, dimmer, and the wind that had been whistling in our ears was now rushing through the leaves of the canopy overhead. The moss was soft beneath my feet. Deciduous and coniferous trees both grow here, and the fir sprigs are dazzling at this time of the year. Akios removed his cap and bowed before the tree. We hold the forest sacred in Rovas and perform our festivals, offerings and ceremonies in consecrated tree groves. Without thinking, I too found myself greeting the forest with respect, as I was taught to do from childhood. You do not suppose the First Mother will be angry, do you, Ennike Rose? The old teachings are returning to me now that I am back home.

  We walked along the barely visible path that Akios had trodden previously, and before the sun had reached its zenith we had arrived at the glade where he had been working. Everything between our village and the Kyri River is common land, and we are free to take firewood and timber for our houses, graze cows (before, when the village still had many cows), pick berries and plants, and so forth. On the other side of the river the forest belongs to the Sovereign of Urundien, and the common folk are only allowed to hunt small game. No Rovasian may hunt large game. But it was a poached deer that saved our lives during the hunger winter. We did not travel as far as the Kyri River, but through the trees we could hear the rush of its flow. A small stream ran along one side of the glade, where we could slake our thirst. Akios scanned the woods vigilantly.

  “What is it, Akios?” I asked with a chuckle. “Scared that Ovran will come and take you away?”

  Ovran is a female entity that people believe in here in Rovas. She lives in the woods, has long birds’ legs and chases solitary men, brandishing razor-sharp claws. Akios looked at me with a frown.

  “There are real dangers in the forest now, Maresi. I’m not afraid when I come here alone, but now that you’re with me . . .” He trailed off. I stared at him. “The nádor’s men,” he clarified anxiously. “They patrol far and wide, supposedly to protect our land against intruders and robbers, and to keep Urundien safe. But all they really do is take whatever they want.” He lowered his voice, just as Mother had done when she spoke about the nádor. “Animals, food, silver . . . women.”