When Women Were Warriors
Book I: The Warrior’s Path
Chapter 22: A Band of Warriors
Although snow still dusted the hilltops, it had melted from the valley floor. The river ice had begun to break up weeks ago. A soft breeze blew warm out of the south, and the earth began to bloom. Our cattle, kept sheltered through the winter, were now pastured on new grass. Cattle raiders would soon come after them. It was time for our warriors to go north to guard our borders. Laris was to take her band of warriors into the hills northeast of Merin’s house. She asked my warrior to go with them.
***
Maara had cured the pelt of the fox she killed. She had left on it both the head and the brush, and over several long evenings she had fashioned a carrying bag out of it. She took great pains with it. The fox’s head formed the flap of the bag, and the tail slipped through a loop under the jaw to hold it closed. The legs overlapped around the sides, the black claws sketching a clever pattern against the fur.
The evening before we were to leave with Laris, Maara brought the bag downstairs. She sat down by the hearth, in the midst of a group of warriors, to put a few finishing touches on it. Several of the men admired it. Breda took it from her and turned it over and over in his hands. He was clearly quite taken with it.
“Would you make me one like it?” he asked her.
“Catch me a fox,” she said, “and I will.”
His face fell.
“Or you could have this one, if you have anything to trade.”
“I have a good knife.”
“I already have a knife.”
He thought for a moment. “A pair of boots?”
She moved her foot over next to his and smiled. His feet were much larger than hers.
Breda made an impatient gesture. “What do you want, then?”
Maara gazed into the fire as if she were giving it some thought. Then she said, “I could use a cloak.”
“A cloak?”
“Yes,” she said. “A good thick winter cloak.”
Breda hesitated before he said, “I have an extra cloak.”
“Let’s see it then.”
He got up to bring it from the men’s house.
“Not that old tattered one,” she said. “It’s worn so thin I could put my fingers through it.”
“I won’t trade my new one,” he said, and sat back down.
“All right,” she said.
Breda watched in silence while she braided a cord from strips of rabbit skin and attached it to the bag. He fidgeted a bit when another man took the bag from her for a moment and admired it. When she had almost finished with it, Breda got up and left the hall. A few minutes later he returned with a heavy winter cloak, made of wool in sunset colors, dark reds and browns with bright streaks of flame all through it.
Breda handed the cloak to Maara. She looked it over carefully, taking more time than she needed to check for worn and raveled places. When she was satisfied, she looked up at him and said, “Are you sure you want to trade this?”
Breda had been shifting impatiently from foot to foot while she examined the cloak.
“I’m sure,” he said. “It’s springtime now. I can get another before winter comes again.”
He held out his hand, and Maara gave him the fox bag.
***
It seemed as if we had been up for hours. We’d had our breakfast. Our pack had been ready since the night before. Now we had nothing to do but wait in Maara’s room until Laris told us it was time to go.
Maara sat quietly on her bed, but I was too impatient to sit still. Every few minutes I got up and glanced out into the hallway to see if the others were ready.
Maara watched me with an amused smile.
“They won’t leave us behind,” she said, when I had gone to the doorway for what seemed like the hundredth time.
“I know.” I sat down again.
“Are you afraid?” she asked.
I took the time to give some thought to my answer. I wanted to be sure that what I told her was the truth.
“I don’t think so,” I said at last. “I just hope I don’t do something wrong.”
“Do what I tell you to do,” she said. “That’s all you can do until you have more experience. If mistakes are made, they’ll be mine, not yours.”
“Are you afraid?” I asked her.
She shook her head. “Cattle raiders come to steal, not to fight.”
“They fought last year,” I said, although I knew she didn’t need to be reminded of it.
“We caught them while they were butchering an animal. They wouldn’t leave the carcass until we drove them off .”
I hoped she would tell me more about what had happened the day she was wounded, but we were interrupted by a commotion in the hallway as Cael and her apprentice, Alpin, barged past our door. They too were to go with Laris.
“It must be time,” Maara said. “Help me with my armor.”
I was glad to have something to do. I buckled her into her armor and fastened her sword to her belt. Then I took her new cloak down from its peg and began to roll it into a bundle for her to carry over her shoulder with her shield. She stopped me and handed me the dark green one she’d worn all winter.
“This one will do,” she said. “Help me put it on.”
It wasn’t cold enough that she needed it for warmth, so I laid it around her shoulders and pulled one end around her body, under her right arm, and draped it over her left shoulder, with the end hanging loose down her back. When Taia appeared in the doorway and told us it was time to go. I picked up our pack and started to follow her, but Maara put her hand on my shoulder and turned me around. She was holding her new cloak.
“You’ll need this,” she said, and she draped it around my body as I had draped hers. Then she took my brooch from my belt and fastened the cloak with it.
Maara’s cloak was a good one, but it was worn in places, not as thick as Breda’s, and not nearly as beautiful. As the soft warmth of the new cloak enveloped me, I said, “You ought to wear the better one.”
“Among my people, when a warrior takes an apprentice, it’s her responsibility to provide her with her clothing and her weapons, with everything she needs. For now, this is the best I can do.”
I saw that it was a matter of pride to her.
“I’ve never had a finer cloak,” I told her.
***
I thought we looked quite fierce as we set out from Merin’s house. The warriors’ painted shields hung from their shoulders, and their cloaks billowed in the breeze. I felt a new strength in my body as I strode down the hill after them. Splendid in my new cloak, proud of my warrior, proud of myself, strong in my companions, I felt capable of anything.
There were five warriors in our party, three women and two men. It was the first time I had traveled with a band of warriors, and I looked to Taia to show me what to do. The warriors led the way, with Laris at their head. The apprentices followed a little way behind. There were only three of us — Taia, Alpin, and me. Neither of the men had brought an apprentice. Kenit, the younger man, had been Donal’s apprentice until a few months before, when he received his shield.
Although I had seen the two men in the great hall many times, I had never spoken to either of them. Donal was an enormous man with flaming red hair. His beard was just as red, and freckles covered his face and arms. Kenit was dark, with a mane of curls so thick they seemed to be trying to make up for the fact that he had no beard to speak of. He appeared small standing next to Donal, but he too was a big man, taller than any of the women with us. He was also a handsome man, and more than once I caught Taia watching him out of the corner of her eye.
Cael was a newcomer to the household. Like Donal and Kenit, she was from the house Laris came from. Her apprentice Alpin had come with her. Alpin was a cheerful, talkative girl who delighted in the prospect of any new adventure. She reminded me a bit of myself as I had been the year before, except that she was already an apprentice. She had known her warrior almost all her life. She shared her warrior’s room and probably her bed as well. The only times I’d had a chance to talk with her had been at suppertime at the companions’ table. The rest of the time she clung to her warrior’s side like a limpet to a rock. I liked her cheerful disposition, and I looked forward to making friends with her.
We started north, following the path Maara and I had taken so often that winter. At midday we turned aside onto a faint trail that led higher into the hills to the northeast. Although the trail wasn’t steep, it was a steady climb, and I was the only one of the apprentices who wasn’t out of breath. I thanked Maara silently for our long walks through the snow.
We were traveling through some of the best grazing land I’d ever seen. Lush grass sprang out of the soil. Stands of trees offered shelter from spring rain and summer heat. Red cattle, shaggy in the remnants of their winter coats, dotted the hillsides, too many to count. I wondered how our little band of warriors would be able to protect them all.
Late that day we arrived at a farmstead, where the people welcomed us with food and a place of honor at their hearth. That night we slept in heaps of soft hay in their byre.
By the next morning neighboring farmers had heard of our arrival and came to greet us. They told us there had been rumors of cattle raids farther to the west, but so far none of the raiding parties had come anywhere near where we were.
Taia explained to me that it would be our task to keep watch. Not far from the farmstead was a hill called Greth’s Tor. From its rocky peak we would have a view of the surrounding countryside, and we were to take it in turns to watch for the approach of strangers. Laris would take the first watch. She asked Maara to go with her. Taia and I accompanied them.
It was midafternoon when we started up the hill, and we reached the top with daylight to spare. No trees grew there, but outcroppings of rock gave us shelter from the wind and hid us from view. We made our camp a little below the hilltop, on the southwest side of the hill, where the stone hearth and ground worn smooth showed that many had camped there before us.
We made a small fire and cooked our supper before the sun set. After dark we would have no fire. Even hidden as we were among the crags, firelight, reflected from the rocks or from a cloudy sky, might give us away.
In the fading light of evening, Laris found vantage points for Taia and for me where we could lie unseen and keep watch on the eastern hills. Laris and Maara took up positions a few dozen yards away, where they could watch the rolling hills to the north. While it would soon be too dark to see anyone approaching, the glow of a campfire or the flickering light of a torch would be visible for miles.
It seemed that we watched for a long time, but it may have been only an hour or two, when Laris called us back to our campsite.
“There’s no point in watching any longer,” she said. “If there were strangers nearby, we would already have seen their fire.”
“If they dared to have a fire,” Taia said.
“Would anyone travel at night?” I asked.
“They might,” said Laris, “but if they do, we won’t be able to see them, so there’s no use in wearing ourselves out watching. We’ll see them in the morning, if they’re there.”
Laris and Maara settled themselves by the ashes of our campfire to talk a while, but Taia was exhausted, and I was beginning to yawn. Taia found us a soft patch of grass nearby. We snuggled together, wrapped in our cloaks. I listened to the murmur of my warrior’s voice as I drifted off to sleep.
***
I awoke before first light and managed to get up without waking Taia. I went a little distance down the hill to relieve myself. Then I decided to go back up to my vantage point to watch until the others were awake. I thought about the raiders Laris spoke of who might have traveled through the night. If there were any about, perhaps I would be the first to see them.
As I went up the hill, I passed by our campsite. Maara lay near the hearth asleep, wrapped in her cloak, and beside her, under the same cloak, was Laris, her fair hair bright against Maara’s back.
I didn’t stop. I went up to the hilltop and lay down among the rocks to watch. What I had seen disturbed me, and I had no idea why it should. I had shared the warmth of my cloak with Taia as a matter of course. Why should I mind that Maara had done the same with Laris?
I gazed out over the countryside, but if an army had been marching up the hill below me, I would have missed it, so preoccupied was I with my own thoughts.
At first I tried to convince myself that I had nothing to be upset about. I should be happy that Maara might have found a friend in Laris. That would be a good thing for both of us. Laris’s friendship would strengthen us against Vintel, and the Lady would have less to complain of if my warrior had a few strong friends among us. I should be delighted that someone like Laris courted Maara’s friendship. Instead, burning in my chest was a growing anger toward her. The more I tried to convince myself I shouldn’t feel it, the more it grew.
At last I gave in to it, and my resentment found words so bitter that I could only speak them to myself in silence. Where was Laris when I stood beside my warrior before the council? Where was Laris when my warrior needed friends in Merin’s house? It was I who had brought Maara within the circle, who had persuaded the Lady to make a place for her, and I had risked my own place to do it. If anyone belonged beside her, I did. I had earned that place.
Even as I indulged my angry thoughts, I knew they were unjust. Laris had done nothing wrong. I suspected my anger masked something else — hurt feelings, perhaps, or fear. Maara and I were bound together in a way that I had thought would prevent my losing her, and while I was in no danger of losing her altogether, something was taking her away from me in small ways, a little at a time.
“What’s the matter?” Maara said, as she sat down beside me. “Have you and Taia had a falling-out?”
I hadn’t heard her approach, and I gave a start when she spoke to me.
“No,” I said.
Then I felt the tears trickling down my cheeks. I brushed them away.
Maara said nothing, but I felt her eyes on me, and I heard her unasked question. I was too ashamed to meet her eyes. I watched the silhouette of the hills emerge against the lightening sky.
“I’m all right,” I said.
“No,” she said. “You would be dead by now.”
“What?” I looked up at her in surprise.
“We’re in harm’s way here. You didn’t hear me approach you, and I wasn’t trying to be quiet. A warrior seldom survives such a mistake.”
I braced myself and waited for her to scold me. Any other warrior would have scolded me, but Maara chose another way to teach me.
“Tamras,” she said gently, “these are the things you’re here to learn.”
Then I wished that she had scolded me. A scolding might have made me angry. Her kindness made me feel like bursting into tears. My lower lip began to tremble.
“What’s the matter? Are you ill?”
I shook my head.
“Homesick?”
“No.”
“Is it your time to bleed?”
I heard the smile in her voice, and I couldn’t help laughing a little at her teasing.
“No,” I said. I waved one hand in the air, as if to wave away her concern. “It doesn’t matter. It’s not important.”
“It matters,” she said, and her voice was grave again.
Just then the sun began to rise. Its first rays dazzled me. I tried to shield my eyes, but the light was too bright, and I had to turn my face away. Maara slid farther down behind the rock that sheltered us and leaned her back against it. She patted the ground beside her as an invitation for me to sit there.
“You won’t be able to see anything until the sun is higher in the sky,” she said. “You might as well rest your eyes.”
I turned away from the rising sun and sat down beside her.
“What does a warrior need most of all?” she asked me.
I could think of many things a warrior needs. Weapons. The skill to use them and the strength to wield them. But all these things were useless without courage.
“Courage,” I said.
“There’s something even more important.”
What could be more important than courage?
“Most of all,” she said, “a warrior needs discipline. Do you know what that is?”
Of course I did, I thought, but when I opened my mouth to tell her, I couldn’t put it into words.
“Discipline is simply self-control,” she said. “If a warrior can’t control her feelings, she can’t control her actions, and if she can’t control her actions, she may blunder into a serious mistake.”
I thought of the mistake I’d made only a few minutes before.
“A warrior’s mistake can have dreadful consequences,” Maara said. “A warrior’s mistake may cost, not only her own life, but the lives of many others.”
I had never been more discouraged. I felt that I had undertaken an impossible task and that it might be best if I went home to herd sheep for the rest of my life rather than assume such a terrible responsibility.
“A warrior who has learned self-control can’t be manipulated or provoked,” Maara went on, “and she can use her feelings to lend power to her actions, instead of allowing them to push her into acting blindly.”
“How does a person learn self-control?” I asked.
“By making a habit of it. If a warrior has no self-control when she’s sitting quietly at home, how will she suddenly find it on the battlefield? Every day will give you another chance to learn.”
I began to feel a bit more hopeful. “How long will it take?”
“All your life.” She saw my dismay and smiled at me. “Don’t worry. By the time you become a warrior, you will have learned enough.”
“How can you be sure?”
“Because I intend to teach you. When I was learning self-control, my teacher was relentless. I intend to be just as relentless with you.”
“Who was your teacher?” I asked her.
“Life,” she said.
***
That morning Laris and Taia watched with us for an hour after sunrise. Early morning and late evening were the most important times to watch. In the morning chill, travelers would want the comfort of a fire, and in the evening they would need the firelight, as well as a hot supper. Fires were easy to see in the half-light of dawn and dusk. So were shadows. The rising and setting sun cast long shadows that could be seen even when the people who cast them were too far away to see.
During the day two people could keep the watch well enough. Laris and Taia went back down to the farmstead, leaving Maara and me behind. Cael and Alpin would come up the hill that evening. They would stay on the next day, and Laris and Taia would come up again to replace Maara and me. In that way, all the women would take it in turns to watch, with each pair of us spending two nights on the hilltop and one at the farmstead.
The men would not stand a watch. They were our strength, and they were to be always ready to confront any strangers who approached Merin’s land.
While we kept watch I had a lot of time to think. I understood why Maara had spoken to me about self-control. She had found me in tears for a reason that seemed foolish to me only a few hours later. Foolish or not, my anger and hurt feelings had caused me to make a dangerous mistake. If I hadn’t been so preoccupied, my attention would have been on the world around me, instead of on myself.
“How can I keep from having feelings?” I asked Maara, as we were eating our midday meal.
“You can’t,” she said. “And you shouldn’t.”
“But if I’m upset, how can I have self-control?”
“You need to learn to use your feelings as they should be used.”
I wasn’t sure what that meant.
“Your feelings tell you many things about the world,” she said, “but people seldom listen to what their feelings tell them. It’s much more satisfying to indulge one’s feelings than to learn from them.”
As I had indulged my anger at Laris that morning, I thought to myself. I had to admit that there had been a certain satisfaction in it. But what could my anger and hurt feelings have taught me about the world?
“You understand the feelings of the body,” Maara said. “When you feel cold, you find a way to warm yourself. You know what hunger means and how to satisfy it. When you’re ill or in pain, you do what you can to care for yourself.”
She looked at me to see if I had understood her. What she’d said seemed so obvious that I thought I might be missing something, but I nodded anyway.
“The feelings of the body tell you about the world that you can see and touch, but it’s not so easy to know what the feelings of your heart are telling you, because they’re telling you about a world that you can’t see.”
“The world of spirits is invisible,” I said, “and the world of the gods. I don’t know of any others.”
“There are many worlds we can’t see. I want to show you the one you most need to be aware of, because every human heart lives in it. That world is no less real than the world we see, but it’s much more difficult to understand. We can make a good start by learning to understand our own hearts, but as difficult as that is, it’s not enough. In many ways people are all the same, and in just as many ways, they’re all very different.”
Maara was silent for several minutes. She was trying to think of a way to teach me something important, and I waited for her to speak again.
“When your body feels pain,” she said at last, “you try to find the cause and do something to stop it, because your pain is warning you of a real danger. When your heart feels pain, you need to find the cause of that too, because the danger is no less real, and your pain will grow worse until you understand what caused it. Only then will you know what can be done to stop it.”
***
The answer came to me that afternoon. I was thinking about my anger at Laris, an anger I found it hard to justify. While I had no right to be jealous of a friendship that could only do Maara good, there was more to my anger than simple jealousy. It was one thing to seek Maara’s friendship. It was quite another to take something that belonged to me. Laris in all innocence had taken the place I wanted for myself, a place I felt I’d earned the right to.
Then I had to ask myself what place it was I meant to claim. It was more than sharing blankets on a cold night or finding comfort in being close to someone in a lonely place. In themselves, those things meant nothing. I had never thought twice about sharing blankets with Sparrow or with Taia or with any of the other companions. It was something I was used to from my childhood, but I felt that Maara was not used to it. The way she held herself made me careful how I touched her. She seldom touched me or gave me any sign that she wanted or even understood the gestures of companionship that were commonplace to me. It could be that the ways of her people were different from ours, or perhaps it was simply her own nature, but I had respected what I thought she wanted and kept my distance. Seeing Laris asleep beside her had surprised me because I thought that she would let no one come that close to her.
What had hurt me was believing that Laris was welcome where I was not. The place I wanted was the place nearest Maara’s heart, and if Laris had taken that from me, I would have found it hard to forgive her for it. Instead she had shown me that if she was welcome by Maara’s side, I too might be welcome there.
At once my heart felt lighter. I thought of Maara’s words. Your pain will grow worse until you understand what caused it. Only then will you know what can be done to stop it. And then I knew what to do.
***
Cael and Alpin came up the hill late that afternoon. They brought some cold supper with them, and we all ate together. Neither Cael nor Maara had much to say, but Alpin chattered away about the people she had met that day and the things she’d learned from them about this part of Merin’s land.
All of us kept the evening watch together. As I knew she would, Alpin stuck to her warrior like a cocklebur. When it was time for us to sleep, I watched with satisfaction as she carefully laid out their cloaks in the soft grass where Taia and I had made our bed the night before.
I followed her example. I took Maara’s cloak from her and laid it on the grass where she had spent the previous night. Then I laid over it the cloak she had given me. I slipped into our makeshift bed and held it open for her. She hesitated only a moment before she lay down beside me.
Copyright © Catherine M. Wilson
