Authors: Marion Zimmer Bradley
When she was down to her underdrawers, Margaret noticed she still had the silken mitt
on her right hand. The palm was slightly muddy, and where the left one had vanished
she could not remember. It did not seem to matter. It was too cold in the pantry to stand
around, so she took the white gown the woman offered, and slipped it over her head. It
was a thick woolen nightgown, clean smelling and soft. It fell in folds against her icy
skin, caressing her. Then she leaned against the wall and tugged off her boots. They
made a squelching noise, and she wiggled her toes in her hose. They were damp, but
not wet, so she decided to keep them on for the present. The state of the floor in the
kitchen was not inviting to bare feet.
Exhausted, she just leaned against the wall for a few minutes, breathing slowly, trying
to adjust to being comparatively warm, dry, and out of the inclement weather. After a
while, Margaret picked up her boots and the belt with its pouch, and went back into the
kitchen.
Stocking-footed, Margaret went through the great room. She passed by the oven, a
huge structure made of brick and tile, and was startled to find it was very hot. Its
welcome warmth penetrated into her bones as she went by, and her cheeks began to
feel almost hot.
After she had set her boots by the hearth, Margaret bent over Mikhail. His skin felt
warm, and his color was better, but he remained unconscious. For a moment she
considered trying to rouse him with her hand. Then she decided that would be very
stupid. Mikhail needed time to heal from matrix shock, and she was too tired to do
anything useful for him, no matter how much she wanted to.
But she needed something to keep herself busy, to keep her mind from fretting any
more than it already was. Margaret spotted a broom leaning against the corner. She
grabbled the handle and started sweeping. Her arm muscles protested, but she ignored
them. The regular rhythm soothed her mind, and after a time her fears began to ease as
well.
She worked her way down one side of the long table and across the end before her
strength ran out. She collapsed on the end of the closest bench, and shook all over. In
spite of the heat of the room, and her own exertions, she was cold all over. But it was
more than that. All the things she had endured came together, overwhelming her
completely. Tears spilled down her cheeks, and she choked back the sound of sobs,
swallowing the terrible noises that welled in her throat.
Margaret did not know how long she sat there, crying silently. A pair of rough hands
took the broom away at some point, and after a time she smelled something cooking.
Her mouth watered. Food. She snuffled and tried to stop crying, but only managed to
do so for a short time. Then it started all over again, leaving her feeling hollow with
hunger and shame at her own weakness.
The woman who had given her the nightgown came over with a small crockery bowl.
It was steaming and there was a faint smell of herbs as she handed it to Margaret. "You
just drink this, and it will put the heart back in you soon enough,
chiya."
"Thank you," she whispered. Margaret let the bowl sit-in her hands, feeling the blessed
warmth creep into her fingers. She lifted it to her lips and sipped, expecting something
nasty tasting and full of virtues. Instead, she got a pleasant mouthful of minty liquid,
sweetened with honey. It slid down her throat like silk, and she could feel the heat of
the drink enter her stomach and begin to ease her aching body. She had almost finished
the stuff when she realized that she had drunk it before, on the trail with Rafaella on
the trip to Neskaya. What had she called it—waytea? the main ingredient was
bitterroot, a strong stimulant. Honey and mountain mint were added to make it
drinkable, but it was still dreadful stuff.
The taste and the memory gave her a sense of connection to her friend. She wished
Rafaella could be with her now, and wondered what the Renunciate would have made
of these earlier members of her Order. Margaret was sure that Rafi would have enjoyed
meeting Damila and the others, and hoped that someday she would be able to tell her
about it.
The waytea jolted her mind, and Margaret began to quiver with alertness. She noticed
everything at once, a state she knew was a combination of exhaustion and the stuff in
her cup. She had a false sense of clarity, as anything
she looked at seemed brighter than normal. While she waited for the sensation to
diminish, she noticed that the table had been scrubbed clean, and a cloth was laid at the
other end of it. She smelled roasting birds, herbs, spices, woodsmoke, and her own
sweat in a pungent mixture. It was all rather overwhelming.
A woman was standing at the table across from her, pounding something in a large
bowl, pulling it back and forth, kneading some kind of dough. She caught a whiff of
soda from it, and smiled. A yeast bread would not be ready for hours, and her mouth
was already watering in anticipation. Margaret watched the woman flip the dough out
expertly onto a floured plate, and plunge her fingers into the gleaming mass. She
formed it into round loaves and walked over to the oven, put her hand into the opening
and nodded. Then she picked up a wooden- object, a long handle with a flattened
platform at the end, slipped it under the two loaves, and carried them to the oven. She
shoved the thing into the opening, wiggled the handle, and withdrew it, leaving the
shaped loaves behind.
The woman wiped her floury hands on the tops of her trousers. Then she hauled a
heavy bag onto the table, and poured out a mass of onions, golden carrots, and the
potatolike roots of which Margaret had become inordinately fond.
"Can I do anything to help?"
The Renunciate gave her a hard look for a moment. "Your hands steady enough to
handle a knife?"
"I don't know, but let me try. I don't think I am up to peeling, but chopping seems
almost possible."
That got a grin. "I am Jonil n'ha Elspeth, and I would be glad of a chopper. It will make
the work go quicker. Not that I mind it, but it always reminds me of my poor mother,
sitting by the fire, trying to make stew from one onion and some millet. She was
always tired, and there was never quite enough to eat."
Jonil pulled two knives from her waist, handed the longer one across the table, and
began expertly peeling the skins of the root vegetables. When she finished one, she
shoved it over to Margaret, and Margaret cut it into quarters, then made smaller pieces.
They worked in silence for a time, until there was quite a mound of cleaned and cut
vegetables
between them. Around them, the others were chatting quietly, laying out bedding, and
turning the room from a deserted kitchen into a livable place. The smell of cooking
pigeons mingled with the smoke, and the delightful scent of baking bread began to
drift from the oven.
"When I joined the Sisters," Jonil said quietly, "I thought I would never have to cook
again—because I wanted more than anything not to be like my poor mother." She gave
a snort of laughter. "Can't imagine what I was thinking of, since Sisters have to eat like
anyone else. I learned the sword, but I am not very clever with it, and so I have ended
up doing all the things I wanted to get away from. But I almost always have enough to
eat."
Margaret's eyes were watering from cutting onions, and she blinked away the tears.
She was still very tired, but the waytea made it possible to ignore it. Then she took the
cuff of the thick gown and wiped her eyes. She felt the heavy, cold touch of the
bracelet brush her cheek. It gave her a start, for she had forgotten it, and she glanced
down at the sparkling eyes of the beast for a second. "Yes, enough to eat is surely one
of life's pleasures."
"I never thought to be sitting at a table cutting up stew with a fine lady. We have had a
few come to us, but most of them were all but useless in the kitchen."
The woman called Karis came up with a cauldron, set it on the table, and began filling
it with the vegetables. She worked slowly, and Margaret did not need to be a telepath
to know that both of these women were very curious about her, and about Mik, and
were just too polite to pry openly. She realized she had not even told them her name,
and that they had not asked it either.
She started to introduce herself, then stopped. .What should she call herself?
Margarethe of Windhaven, the woman she resembled closely enough to have fooled
Ro-bard MacDenis, was dead. She held back a shiver. She did not want to be anyone
but herself, let alone a dead person. More, she had a deep certainty that she must speak
with care. She was out of her own time, and the less she said, the better. What she
needed Was a nice, fairly innocuous name, something almost anonymous. She needed
to be a Jane Doe or Mary Smith, and her tired brain was not cooperating.
At last she said, "I am called Marja . . . Leynier." There
were
Leyniers in her bloodline,
but the falsehood made her tense a little. And retreating into the nickname she had not
used in years felt a little peculiar as well.
"Marja—now that is one I never heard before," Jonil answered cheerfully. "Right
pretty, like its bearer."
Margaret laughed at that. "Pretty! I feel like a drowned rat."
"You looked like one, at first,
domna."
Both of the women chuckled at Joris' remark.
Karis picked up the cauldron and hauled it over to the fireplace. Margaret saw her add
some water from a wooden bucket, then drop in some chunks of dried meat as well,
and set it on a hook above the flames. Jonil glanced over her shoulder. "I better go see
to the seasonings, or Karis will put in handfuls of pepperpods, and it will be too spicy
to eat. She is a good woman, but she can't be trusted with flavor. If she were a singer,
I'd say she was tone deaf." With that Jonil rose and walked over to the fireplace,
leaving Margaret to stare at the pile of peelings.
There was an end of a carrot in the pile, and she picked it up and crunched it. It was
tough and woody, but it still had a slight sweetness, and the taste of earth as well.
Margaret chewed and chewed, until her jaw ached slightly, and finally swallowed.
Damila came and .sat down across from her. She gave her close-cropped hair a finger
combing. "Your husband seems to be just sleeping now, but I think he may throw a
fever before the night is over. Vanda is brewing up some feverwort, just in case. It is
best drunk cold, so we need to make it up now." She paused, looked uncomfortable,
and cleared her throat. "How did you end up ... under that tree?"
"I am not sure," Margaret temporized. "Everything is very hazy."
"Well, how did he get matrix shock?"
"He touched something. . . ." That was true as far as it went, and Margaret decided not
to elaborate. She tried to look stupid, and wished that Damila would stop asking
questions. It crossed her mind that she had the capacity to compel the woman to leave
her alone, and shuddered at the idea.
Fortunately, Damila appeared to think her shiver was perfectly normal. "What was it?"
"I think it was a trap-matrix, but I am not sure. It affected me as well. There was a
blaze of light, and that is all I really remember." She felt her face pale, and was amazed
that she could fib without blushing.
"Ah, well, that explains it. That Varzil Ridenow, the Lord of Mali, has been trying to
find all of them, and destroy them, but there are so many, in old houses and other
places. And his hunting days are over. He's been in the
rhu fead
for more than a month,
lying in state, I suppose, though no one has come to see him. That's the rumor, anyhow.
One of them. Another says he is already gone, and then there are those who insist he is
in hiding, and not in the
rhu fead
at all. I don't know what to believe. All I am sure of is
that the Compact is tottering like some old gaffer, on its last legs. That is good for us,
because it means a lot of lords are looking for fighters, even women. As if we hadn't
enough of that." Damila hesitated. "You are not telling me everything, are you?"
Margaret hardly heard her, because she was trying to remember what the
rhu fead
was.
At last her weary brain coughed up the answer, and she recalled that this was the name
of some sort of chapel, near Hali Tower, a place of power. That made a strange kind of
sense, because Varzil had brought them to Hali. But why had they ended up going off
to that imaginary house? She was not sure why, but it was very important, and she
wished Mikhail was awake to question.
"No, I am not telling you everything, and I am sorry about that." She shrugged slightly.
"I don't think you would believe me if I did."
Damila nodded. "You and the man, you are not from around here, are you?"
Margaret found herself laughing almost hysterically. Several of the Sisters turned and
stared at her. "You could say that, Damila. You could definitely say that!" When she