When Women Were Warriors
Book I: The Warrior’s Path
Chapter 6: Missing
All summer the northern tribes left us in peace. At harvest time their warriors came to raid the farms along our northern border. The time had come for Maara to take up her sword and shield and join our warriors on the frontier. She refused to take me with her.
“Why?” I asked her.
She didn’t answer me. She concentrated on the folding of her pack.
“Please,” I said.
“No.”
“Are you afraid you can’t depend on me?”
“No.”
“Why, then?”
“It’s too dangerous,” she said. “You’re not ready.”
“I thought I was doing well.”
She stopped what she was doing and looked at me.
“You’re doing very well,” she said. “Next year you’ll be ready, but not now.”
As disappointed as I was that she wouldn’t take me with her, this was the first time she’d ever praised me in so many words, and the pleasure it gave me stopped my protests.
“Let me go part way with you then,” I said.
“Maybe,” she replied.
In the morning we went north together. We stopped well before dark and made our camp. We were still a long way from our northern border, but we had gone as far as she would let me go. We ate our supper early. I had run out of things to chatter on about. I already missed her.
She asked me for a story. She took me by surprise, and I began the first one that popped into my head.
In ancient days, when only women were warriors, lived a young girl and her mother in a cottage at the edge of the forest. All around the cottage were meadows where they grazed their sheep, and in the springtime flowers of great beauty grew there. The forest was a dark and dangerous place, the abode of wolves. In wintertime, the hungry wolves came in search of sheep, and every year they killed at least a few.
All her life the girl had feared the forest. One summer day, when the flowers in the meadow had all bloomed and faded, she sat near her flock in the shade of an old oak at the forest’s edge. The day was hot, and soon she slept. The sound of singing filled her dreams. She awoke, and still she heard it. Sometimes one voice, sometimes many, echoed among the trees.
The girl followed the sound. Deep she went into the forest, deep into the dark beneath the trees, until she came to a clearing where flowers grew. They were all the colors of the night — the violet of twilight, the pale silver of the moon, the rose of dawn. In her delight, she fell to her knees and began to pick them.
She had forgotten that it was the song she’d followed, but when the singing stopped, she remembered. She stood up and put the flowers she had gathered into the folds of her tunic. Then she began to be afraid. She turned for home but could not find her way. Night was falling.
As the darkness deepened, she saw the amber eyes of wolves glowing in the shadows. The wolves drew near, until they were all around her. The whole pack of them pressed in on her, so that she could not tell one wolf from the other.
They began to run, and she had no choice but to run with them. It felt to her as if her body ran on all fours, as if she were gathering her arms and legs beneath her before springing forward with a power she had never had before. Her eyes could see as well in darkness as in daylight. Her ears attuned themselves to every sound. She heard the wings of night birds as they pursued their prey, the scurrying feet of mice, the beating hearts of hunted animals, and their last cries.
New smells too came to her on the air — the rotting of the forest floor, the breath of leaves, the bite of water as they passed a brook, the scent of each wolf, as distinct as the faces of the people she knew. She ran and ran until she had no memory of herself, and her waking life became a dream that shimmered at the edges of her mind.
In the morning the girl awoke beneath the oak tree. Out of the corner of her eye, she thought she caught sight of a wolf as it vanished into the forest, but it may have been only the shadow of her dream.
She knew her mother would be worried, so she hurried home. Before she went into the cottage, she stopped by a brook to wash her face and hands. When she leaned over the water, out of the folds of her tunic fell flowers the colors of the night — the violet of twilight, the pale silver of the moon, the rose of dawn.
I must have scared myself with that story, or perhaps I was already afraid for my warrior, but that night I had bad dreams. I woke to see her sitting by the warm ashes of the fire.
“Were the wolves after you?” she said.
A little smile played around the corners of her mouth. I didn’t mind her teasing, and her smile lifted my heart.
In the morning she left me. I was in no hurry to go home. I didn’t want the others to see the tears that came too easily. I camped that evening not far from Merin’s house. It wasn’t until the next afternoon that I felt ready to face the household.
I tried to tell myself that I was only disappointed to be left behind, but at last I had to admit to myself how much I missed her. I had been alone in Merin’s house until my warrior needed me, and then I wasn’t lonely anymore.
***
The Lady was angry with me.
“Did you know she was going to the frontier?” she asked me.
“Yes,” I said. “She told me she was going to join the others.”
“But she left alone.”
“Yes.”
“And you didn’t think it strange?”
“No,” I said. “She told me — ”
“Did it never occur to you that she might be lying to you?”
“No,” I said. “She doesn’t lie.”
The Lady shook her head at me. “You have no idea if she has lied to you or not. From what you’ve told me about her, she says so little that it would be difficult to catch her in a lie. And sometimes the greatest lies are found in what people fail to say.”
I was confused. “She told me she was going to join the warriors who went north with Vintel a week ago.”
“And why did she not leave with them a week ago?”
I couldn’t answer her. I didn’t know.
“Did she tell you why she wouldn’t take you with her?”
“She said I wasn’t ready.”
“Well, that may be true enough,” she said. “Or it may have been an excuse to get rid of you, so that she could go back to wherever she came from.”
That possibility had never occurred to me.
“When did she leave you?” the Lady asked me.
“Yesterday morning,” I replied.
The Lady looked alarmed. “How far did she take you, that you were two days coming home?”
“She didn’t take me far.”
I wanted to reassure the Lady that my warrior hadn’t taken me into danger, but I was embarrassed to admit to her why I had stayed away so long.
“I turned my ankle a bit on the way home,” I said. “I rested it for a day so that I wouldn’t make it worse.”
Though it was true I’d turned my ankle, I had done it earlier that day, and it hadn’t bothered me much.
Suddenly the Lady’s face changed. She had been impatient with me. Now she smiled and put her arm around my shoulders.
“My dear,” she said. “You are so young. I know how she must appear to you. She is a warrior. She is strong and brave and skillful. She is everything you want to be, and she has been teaching you, although she has no obligation to.”
My mouth dropped open in surprise.
“Of course I knew about it,” she said. “There is little I don’t know about what happens here.”
The Lady put her hands on my shoulders and turned me to face her.
“Your mother is my dearest friend,” she said. “Your family and mine were the first to take this land. Together we have held it for many generations, and we will hold it for many generations more. I’ve put my trust in you, believing that of all the people in my service, you would not be turned against me.” She looked long into my eyes. “Do you belong to your warrior or to me?”
“To you,” I said.
It was the only answer I could give her, though it hurt my heart to say it. I felt Maara’s disappointment, as if she could have heard me, yet by her oath she belonged to the Lady just as I did.
The Lady smiled. “Good,” she said.
“What do you believe she’s going to do?”
“I have no idea,” she replied. “Maara may be just what she claims to be, or she may not. If I had known she was leaving for the frontier, I would have sent someone with her, to see that she joined our warriors there. If you had come home yesterday, I would have sent someone after her, but as it is, all we can do now is wait for news. If she joins Vintel, I will know it within the week. If not, we’ll have to wait and see what happens.”
“I can’t believe she would betray us. I would trust her with my life.”
“And with all our lives?”
“She almost lost her life in your service,” I reminded her.
“She made her oath to me. She did no more than keep it.”
“Why did you accept her oath if you were so afraid of her?”
“I accepted her because she had nowhere else to go, and because I trusted my own feelings about her, but it’s always wise to make sure that one’s feelings tell the truth.”
The Lady gave me a quick hug, the first she’d ever given me, and kissed my brow.
“I know you meant well,” she said. “Try not to worry about this. There may be no harm done, and even if she does betray us to the northern tribes, we are much stronger than they. The knowledge of our strength should only discourage them from trying it.”
That night I went to my bed in tears. I had failed in my obligation to the Lady. She had warned me not to be too trusting, but in all the time I’d spent with Maara, I never doubted her intentions for a minute. Now I didn’t know if I had been right or wrong.
***
A week went by without news. After another week, we knew my warrior hadn’t joined Vintel’s band. The Lady said nothing more to me about it. She must have known how sorry I was that I had disappointed her, and she was wise enough not to humiliate me by saying, “I told you so.”
My head and my heart could not agree. When I tried to convince myself that Maara had betrayed us, I could easily find evidence against her. We had explored Merin’s land together, and now she had knowledge, not only of the countryside, but of our defenses and our weaknesses. She had asked me many questions I couldn’t answer since I too was a newcomer to Merin’s house. Because I felt close to her, all the more so because she was close to no one else, I would have told her anything.
But my heart would not believe she had been false to us. My heart missed her and worried about her. My heart reminded me of the times I’d made her laugh and the times I’d seen her watching me with pride when I was learning something new. My heart remembered the kindness in her eyes. When I remembered these things, I forgot what my head told me. I believed my heart.
***
I moved my bed back to the companions’ loft. I felt less lonely there, even though most of the companions, including Sparrow, were away with their warriors at the frontier. Every day I went out into the countryside to help bring in the harvest. It gave me something to do, and at night I was so tired that I fell into my bed and slept a dreamless sleep.
On my way to and from the fields, I stopped by the oak grove. It lay a short distance from Merin’s house, just off the path that joined the river road. The ancient trees had once been part of the great forest that generations past had cleared for farmland. They had spared the sacred groves. The oak grove was sacred to the Mother, and every day without fail I left an offering. My mother always told me that a gift expects no return, so I never asked for anything, but I brought my warrior’s image before my mind’s eye, to remind the Mother to keep Maara in her sight.
Copyright © Catherine M. Wilson
