When Women Were Warriors
Book I: The Warrior’s Path
Chapter 15: Midwinter’s Night
Our prisoners were sent away with the Lady’s gifts of grain and cattle. Maara found a few among them who spoke the language of the northern tribes, although, as she suspected, these men were not northerners. I would not soon forget the expressions on their faces when she made them understand that they would be taken to our northern border and allowed to find their own way home. Vintel and her band of warriors escorted them. She didn’t ask my warrior to go with them.
As I had hoped, the warriors of Merin’s house began to take notice of Maara, and a few of them offered her their friendship. Laris, Taia’s warrior, sought her out more than once after the evening meal and brought her into the circle of warriors gathered around the hearth. While apprentices were tolerated in these gatherings of warriors, companions were not. I tried not to mind too much.
***
Sun’s light. Moon’s light. Lamplight and firelight.
Love’s light. Light my way through the longest night.
On midwinter’s night we sang the song that every one of us had known from childhood — everyone but Maara. The singing surprised her. From where I sat with the other companions, I could just see her, sitting beside Namet, who had drawn her out of a dark corner and seated her among the other warriors. Maara had once said that no one told her stories when she was a child, and now I suspected she had never heard a group of people sing together. Her eyes, wide with wonder, went from face to face. I’d never seen her look so young.
We had no poets in the household, no bards or singers, no one who played the pipe or harp. At holiday times we made our own music, as my family had done at home. Some of the elders had lovely voices. Fet, who was ordinarily so quiet, had a fine, clear voice that fell over us like a gentle rain. Her shield friend, Fodla, had to be urged to sing, but when she did, her deeper voice supported Fet’s and wound around it, until their two voices blended perfectly into one.
Long night. Soft dark. Sleep, sleep in Mother’s arms.
Silence holds us. Love enfolds us. Safe from harm.
Sun’s light. Moon’s light. Lamplight and firelight.
Love’s light. Light my way through the longest night.
The rich smell of nuts roasting in the ashes of the fire mingled with the scent of hot cider and the pine branches that hung all around the great hall. I sat with the other companions on the floor, while the warriors, both women and men, sat on benches or stools close by the hearth. Outside the night was cold. Inside we basked in the warmth of firelight and friendship.
Days longer. Light stronger. Nights warmer. Hope clearer.
Life longer. Love stronger. Hearts warmer. Day nearer.
Sun’s light. Moon’s light. Lamplight and firelight.
Love’s light. Light my way through the longest night.
I closed my eyes and thought of home. This midwinter’s night was the first I had ever spent away from my family. I missed them, and in my mind’s eye I pictured them around me. I saw the faces of my mother and my sister, and I saw too the faces of the dead. I saw my grandmother’s face and heard her voice, singing a song she used to sing. I saw my father’s face, although I thought I had forgotten it. I felt again as I used to feel while we watched together through the night. I was safe within the circle, as long as I had my mother’s arms around me.
When I was a child and afraid of the dark, my grandmother once told me, “In the dark we were made. In the dark we rest as in the Mother’s womb, and there she recreates us before she brings us out again into the light.” After that, when I lay in my bed in the dark, I would fall into sleep believing that I fell into the Mother’s arms. Midwinter’s night was a night to fall into the dark. We fall, trusting, into sleep, believing that morning will come and we will wake again. We fall, trusting, into the endless dark of midwinter’s night, believing that light will come again into the world.
All around me the companions slept, their heads pillowed on their arms or on each other’s bodies. Sparrow lay beside me, fast asleep, her head in my lap, and I lay back against Taia’s shoulder. The last thing I saw before I slept was Maara’s face.
***
The drum woke me. Steady as a heartbeat, I almost mistook it for the beating of my own heart. The lamps had all gone out, and the fire had burned low. The room was dark. The girls around me began to wake. So slowly we hardly noticed it, the drum began to beat a little faster, a little louder. Before long everyone in the great hall was awake and stirring.
Pah pom. Silence. Pah pom. Silence. Pah pom.
This time the silence remained unbroken.
We made ready to go outdoors to greet the sun. The Lady and the elders went first, then the warriors with their apprentices, then the companions and the servants. Wrapped in cloaks and blankets, huddled close together, we faced the east and watched the mountains’ silhouette emerge against the lightening sky, until at last the rim of the pale sun peeked over the earth’s edge. We watched as the whole body of the sun revealed itself, and the light of the midwinter sun fell over us like a blessing. Then we hurried back indoors.
The Lady knelt by the hearth and struck a spark into dry tinder to make a new fire. The first spark caught. It was a good sign. With her breath, the Lady encouraged it to grow into a bright flame. From that flame, she lit a torch to carry the new fire to every hearth in the household.
***
Sparrow and I sat side by side at the companions’ table. The feasting had gone on all day, and we were too full to move. Around us people talked quietly together or listened as someone told a story. Sparrow handed me something wrapped in a piece of cloth.
“What’s this?” I asked her.
“Look and see,” she said.
I unwrapped her gift. It was a brooch, made of dark wood, carved to look like a circle of braided cord, with a pin of lighter wood to fasten it. It was beautiful.
“It belonged to Eramet,” Sparrow said.
I had no cloak, so I was not in need of a brooch to fasten it.
“How shall I wear it?” I asked her.
She unfastened the leather belt I wore over my tunic and removed the plain wooden buckle. Then she did it up again, using the brooch to fasten it.
I had prepared a gift for her too. When I left home, my mother gave me a token to wear. It was a bit of amber with an insect’s wing inside it. I had worn it for a while, but having something around my neck bothered me, and I put it away. Earlier that day I’d put it on again. Now I took it off and gave it to Sparrow.
“This is for you,” I said.
She was as pleased with my gift as if it had been made of gold. She held it up to the firelight, and the flame shone through the amber, golden as the summer sun.
***
By bedtime I was already half asleep. It was all I could do to get up from the table and follow my warrior to her room. As she usually did, Maara stopped in the doorway of Namet’s room, but Namet wasn’t there. She would still be with the elders, who had spent the day apart from the household, conducting the midwinter ritual. Every season of the year offered its own wisdom, and when the seasons turned, the Mother’s hand would sometimes fall upon one of them, so that she might catch a glimpse behind the veil and learn something to help us understand the things that would happen in the coming year.
I helped Maara prepare for bed. I was just about to get undressed myself when the Lady appeared in the doorway.
“Come with me,” she said.
I followed the Lady to her chamber. There was a good fire burning on the hearth. She sat down on the hearthstone and motioned to me to sit down beside her. I put my hand over my mouth to cover a yawn.
“I know you’re tired,” the Lady said. “I won’t keep you long. I have good news for you.”
“Good news?”
“Vintel has asked for you.” The sparkle in her eyes told me there was more. “She wants you, not as a companion, but as her apprentice.”
I hardly knew what to think. It was not the custom to take someone as an apprentice right away. A warrior would first take a girl to be her companion, and later they would both decide whether they would be bound together as warrior and apprentice. The expression on my face gave me away.
“Why does that not please you?” the Lady asked me.
“I already have a warrior.”
“You’re only her companion,” she replied. “I know that she has treated you as an apprentice, and she’s taught you well, but the time has come for you to take your own place among us.”
I could think of nothing to say.
“I understand that your time here has been difficult for you,” the Lady said. “You’ve been tested, and you haven’t disappointed me.” She put her arm around my shoulders and drew me close against her side. “Because you are your mother’s daughter, you will always have a place here. For her sake, I would regard you as my own child. But today I offer you a place that you have shown yourself worthy of. Although you are small in body, you have shown me that you have courage and loyalty and strength of spirit.”
Her arm around me was warm and gentle. She caressed my shoulders and my back with her open hand, much as my mother used to do.
“Vintel is my right hand,” she said. “She is the first among all the warriors of this household. She honors you by asking for you.”
“I know,” I said.
“Why do you hesitate?”
I didn’t know what to tell her. I didn’t care for Vintel as I cared for Maara. I didn’t trust Vintel as I trusted Maara. My head told me I couldn’t ask for a better apprenticeship than the one the Lady offered me, but with all my heart I didn’t want it.
“Change is always difficult,” the Lady said. “It may feel strange to you at first, but you will grow as used to Vintel as you are now to Maara. In fact, I would be surprised if you didn’t come to feel even closer to her. Vintel is one of us, while Maara is a stranger here. She is welcome to stay with us, of course, for as long as she chooses, but she can never be as one of our own.”
The Lady was telling me that I should choose a warrior who was one of our own people, who would offer to me and to my family valuable friendships and alliances and ties of obligation. Maara could offer me only herself. She had nothing else.
I thought carefully before I spoke. “I will thank Vintel for the honor,” I said, “but I can’t accept her offer.”
I felt the Lady stiffen. She was watching me closely, and I was too tired to try to conceal from her what I was feeling, so I simply told her the truth.
“My warrior has treated me well,” I said. “She has taught me, though I’m not her apprentice. She risked her life to return to a place where she felt both unwelcome and unsafe, not because she owed us anything, but because she cared for us more than many of us ever cared for her.”
The Lady frowned, but she waited for me to finish what I had to say.
“I know the value of what Vintel offers me, but you have praised my loyalty, and my loyalty is to Maara, for as long as she wants me.”
“And if she doesn’t want you?”
It was a cruel question and one I couldn’t answer.
“If she cares for you at all, she will want you to do what’s best for you.”
Everything the Lady said was true. Everything she said was reasonable. The right thing for me to do was plain for anyone to see, but my heart refused to see it.
“What is best for you is, I think, best for her as well,” she said.
My heart fell.
“Maara has spoken of finding a place where she belongs, just as you belong to us. Maybe this year, maybe next, she’ll want to leave us. It would be wrong of you to hold her here.”
Then I knew I was defeated. The Lady felt the fight go out of me, and she was wise. She didn’t press me any further. She left me to make the decision for myself.
“Take some time to think,” she said. “Speak with your warrior and with Vintel. I trust that when you come to a better understanding, you will do what’s best for everyone.”
***
I went back to Maara’s room and found her asleep. I reached my hand out to awaken her, but just before I touched her, I thought better of it. I was troubled and afraid, and more than anything I wanted to be comforted. I wanted Maara to listen to my troubles and reassure me that all would be well. While that might have made me feel a little better, it would not help my situation. What I needed to do was think, and consider what, if anything, I could do about it.
I went downstairs and sat down on the hearthstone in the great hall. A few people were still lingering there. Some were talking quietly together. Others nodded over mugs of hot cider. No one paid any attention to me.
I saw what was going to happen. I would be apprenticed to Vintel. Maara might stay with us, but when I was no longer her companion, the tie between us would be broken, whether she stayed in Merin’s house or not. The companions would all envy me. As Vintel was first among the warriors, so Vintel’s apprentice would be first among her peers. In due time I would be made a warrior, and I might aspire to be the Lady’s right hand someday, as Vintel was now. It was everything I thought I wanted. That night it meant nothing to me.
Tears filled my eyes. I was ashamed for anyone to see me crying, so I retreated into the friendly darkness of the kitchen. I thought I was being quiet, until I heard a whisper in the dark.
“Has Rumbles had her kittens or is someone crying?”
“Someone is crying,” I said.
I felt my way over to Gnith’s place on the hearth and sat down beside her.
“Who is it?” Gnith asked.
“Tamras,” I said.
Gnith’s bony fingers found my hand and held it in a grip that was very strong for one so frail.
“Do I know you?”
“Yes, Mother,” I said. “I’m Tamras, Tamnet’s daughter.”
“You stood before the council.”
“Yes.” I was amazed that she remembered me.
“Have you lost your sweetheart?”
“No, Mother.” Although a few tears still trickled down my face, I couldn’t help but laugh a little.
“Hmm,” she said. “You must not have a sweetheart. Not so funny to lose a sweetheart.”
“No, Mother.”
“No sweetheart.”
“No.”
“Too bad,” she said. “A young girl should have a sweetheart.”
I couldn’t think of anything to say to that.
“Did someone die?”
“I don’t think so,” I said.
“No sweetheart and no one died?”
“No, Mother.”
“Perhaps you are crying because you have no sweetheart.”
“I’m not crying.”
“No,” she said. “Not anymore.”
The laughter in her voice told me that she had been teasing me away from my tears.
“There is something troubling me,” I said.
“What would that be?”
“The Lady wants to apprentice me to someone, but I don’t want to be her apprentice.”
“Then say no.”
“I don’t think I can.”
“Of course you can.”
“The Lady isn’t making it easy for me.”
“I wonder why,” she said.
“She wants me to be bound to one of our own people.”
“Ah,” said Gnith. “You are the stranger’s gage.”
I had never heard the word before. “What is a gage?”
“A gage is like a pledge,” she said. “Something a person would leave with another as a guarantee. Of her word. Of a promise or the payment of a debt.”
“Oh,” I said.
“That changes things.”
“It does?”
“Oh, yes. That changes things.”
Gnith handed me a lamp. “Bring some light,” she said.
Not far away, embers glowed on one of the open hearths. I lit the lamp and brought it back to Gnith.
“You don’t want to leave your stranger, do you?”
“No.”
“Does she want to keep you?”
“I don’t know.”
“You must ask her.” Gnith shook her finger at me. “That’s important. Make sure that you are what she wants. As she is what you want. Will you?”
“Yes,” I said. “I will.”
Gnith’s eyes sparkled in the lamplight, and her mouth widened in a gleeful grin. “I think I can help you,” she said. “Yes, yes, I think I can.”
She motioned to me to lean closer to her. “Listen,” she whispered. “The Lady can use every one of us as she will. That is her right. Just as her care of us is her duty. You understand?”
I nodded.
“But sometimes when she uses us, she may incur a debt.”
I didn’t understand.
“You stood in your warrior’s place,” said Gnith. “That was a gift to your warrior. But you were also a pledge of safety to the Lady. An extraordinary service it was that you did for her. I think you might ask a gift.”
“A gift?” I said. “What gift?”
“What is it that you want? What is it you were crying about just now? What do you want to happen? What do you want not to happen?”
I thought about it for a minute. “I don’t want to be Vintel’s apprentice. I want to be Maara’s apprentice, but I don’t know if she’ll accept me. Still, I would rather be her companion than anyone’s apprentice.”
Gnith chuckled. “You’re a strange girl, Tamras, Tamnet’s daughter. You don’t want what you ought to want, but you know what it is you do want. I suppose that counts for something.”
“What is it that I ought to want, Mother?”
“Not for me to say,” she said. “People want what they want. Sometimes they get it. More often they don’t. And if they do get it, they may be sorry.”
Gnith took my hand again and looked into my eyes. “Make sure of what you want, and when you get it, don’t complain.”
***
I was awake at first light, and by the time I had dressed myself, Maara was also awake. I felt her eyes on me as I pulled on my heavy boots and my warmest tunic.
“I need to speak with you,” I said.
She blinked sleepily at me. “All right.”
“Now,” I said.
“All right.” She sat up in her bed and looked at me.
“Not here.”
“Oh,” she said.
I helped her dress. Then I took her cloak from where it lay covering the foot of her bed and put it over her shoulders.
“Where are we going?” she asked me.
“Outside.”
“Oh,” she said.
She followed me down the stairs and through the kitchen. We went out the back door and through the kitchen yard. I didn’t want to run into anyone, especially the Lady or Vintel, before I had a chance to talk with Maara.
The air was cold, and voices carry in the cold. I wanted to get well away from the house, where no one would overhear us. There were few places where we could talk unheard and unobserved, so I took Maara down to the oak grove. The sun was low in the sky, and the long shadows of the trees stretched out over the snow.
The oak grove was a good choice. The ancient trees reassured me. They made a strong circle around us. I turned to face my warrior.
“There’s something I need to say to you,” I said. Even though we were alone, we were in a sacred place, and I kept my voice low.
She met my eyes and waited. She looked as if she expected to hear bad news.
“The Lady wants to apprentice me to Vintel.”
I watched her, to see if she would show me how she felt about it. She looked away. “That would be a good thing for you,” she said.
“Why?”
She looked back at me, surprised. “I thought that was obvious.”
“It seems to be obvious to everyone but me.”
The night before, I did as Gnith had told me. I thought long about what I wanted and why I wanted it. Because of that, and perhaps because of where we were, my words had a power they’d never had before.
“I’m going to tell you what I want,” I said. “Then you must tell me what it is that you want.”
Her face closed a bit. She waited.
“I want you to accept me as your apprentice.”
She closed her eyes for a moment. I thought I saw a look of pain cross her face, but it vanished so quickly I couldn’t be sure.
“The Lady would never give her consent.”
“I’m telling you what I want,” I said. “Right now, the only thing that matters is what I want. And what you want.”
Something new came into her eyes. I couldn’t name it. It was more than curiosity, more than surprise. A window had opened, and for a moment she was unguarded.
“I want to be your apprentice,” I said. “I understand that someday you may want to leave this place for a place where you will feel more at home, and if you do, I will release you from your obligation to me. If you’re still unwilling to take on the obligations of apprenticeship, then I would rather remain your companion than be apprenticed to Vintel, or to anyone else.
“Last night I asked myself why I feel this way. Many would see my choice as foolish. I realize that. But what I want to be has more to do with the things you’ve taught me that were not about swordplay or camp craft or any of the things that any other warrior could have taught me. I don’t have the words to tell you what those things are.”
I cast about for a way to make her understand. “You’ve taught me how to build a warrior’s body. You’ve taught me how a warrior handles weapons and how a warrior walks in dangerous places. Any of the warriors here could teach me those things, but you have shown me a warrior’s heart, and every warrior’s heart is different. If I ever do become a warrior, I want to have a warrior’s heart like yours.”
Time stopped. Silence fell over us. We looked at each other, and I knew that she had heard me.
“I’ve told you what I want,” I said. “Now I want you to tell me what you want. Do you know? What is it that you want?”
“What do I want?”
“Yes.”
“I want to go home,” she said. “I can’t. So I don’t suppose it matters where I go.”
As much as her answer surprised me, I saw in it a way to speak to her.
“What would home be like?” I asked her.
“I don’t know.”
“Then how would you know if you found it?”
“Home would feel different. Home would feel like…”
“Like what?”
“I don’t know.”
“Do you know what home feels like to me?”
She shook her head.
“Merin’s house is my home,” I said, “as much as my mother’s house is my home, but sometimes I feel as if I don’t belong here. Sometimes I feel as if no one here will ever see me as I am. They all see Tamnet’s daughter, who has a place within the circle. The threads of my life are tangled in the web of all the other lives here, and sometimes I want to tease them out and weave a pattern of my own, rather than fit myself into a pattern made by others.
“But on midwinter’s night, I was glad to have a place within the circle. I felt comforted and safe. I knew the songs we sang and the stories we told and how we would greet the sun in the morning. Some things in Merin’s house are different from the way things were at home, but mostly this place feels familiar. There’s something comforting about things that are familiar.”
Maara had been listening carefully to everything I said. “What does any of that have to do with me?”
“If you take me as your apprentice,” I told her, “you will begin to tangle the threads of your life with the threads of my life and with the web of all these other lives. In time this place will become familiar to you, and the day will come when no one will remember that you were once a stranger here.”
Suddenly Maara smiled. “When did you grow such a golden tongue? I think you could talk the birds down out of the trees this morning.”
I smiled back. “Have I persuaded you?”
The smile left her eyes. “What difference does it make? The Lady has other plans for you.”
“It may make no difference at all,” I said, “but I intend to ask the Lady for what I want, and before I do, I need your consent.”
Maara frowned. “Have you cast an enchantment over the Lady? She seems to do everything you ask of her. I don’t doubt that it’s because she sees the wisdom in what you ask, but sometimes I believe things happen for you just because you want them to.”
She took a step closer to me and put her hands on my shoulders. She looked deep into my eyes, as the Lady had looked into my eyes when I first entered her house. This time I saw no visions. This time I saw only my warrior’s face, as familiar to me as the palms of my hands, and in her eyes I saw a promise.
“You have my consent,” she said. “You would honor me if you would become my apprentice.”
***
As we walked back up the hill, I thought about Maara’s words. I want to go home. Such a simple wish. I remembered how eager I had been to get away from home, but my home was still there waiting for me, would always be there waiting for me, while Maara might walk from one end of the world to the other and never find what she was seeking.
I felt Maara’s eyes on me. “Are you having second thoughts?” she said.
“No,” I said. “I was thinking about you.” I stopped and faced her. “You gave me what I wanted. I wish I could give you what you want.”
“You gave me something I didn’t know I wanted,” she replied. “No one else has ever asked me what I wanted.”
Copyright © Catherine M. Wilson
