Harpy’s Flight. Megan Lindholm

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СКАЧАТЬ carry her away. The horses stepped up the pace willingly. They had been this way before and knew this turning led to clean stables, to a feed of grain, and a thorough rubbing and cleaning of their hides. These were the pastures where they had been birthed and where they had galloped as ridiculous colts until the day Sven put their lead ropes into the unbelieving hands of young Ki. Of their own accord the team quickened its pace once again. Sigurd raised his huge head in a whinny of greeting. An answer rose from the stables.

      A lantern appeared at the door of the long, low stone building. Ki heard the murmur of voices, saw Rufus direct his sons to open the stable doors and be ready to care for Ki’s team. Lars sighed.

      ‘They sent me ahead, you know. I was supposed to prepare you for this Rite, and I have not. But I doubt that anyone could. Let it be a healing to you, Ki, a sharing of your sorrow. Let the pain spread out to be carried by all of us, and you will find your own burden less. That is how it is intended. You say Sven spoke to you of some of our customs. Of them all, this is the one I think is the most powerful, in uniting a family and dividing its woes.’

      Ki nodded grimly. She dreaded it all. She had no idea what this Rite of Loosening would be. Among strangers, she would have to do her best to fulfill this Rite for them. Her final sacrifice to the memory of Sven. A last debt to pay before she went on her own way. She would think of Sven and do it well.

      Rufus was bringing the lantern to the wagon seat. Ki climbed down quickly before he could offer help. Lars leapt down from the other side. Already the boys were loosening the harnesses from the horses to lead them away to cool water and clean straw. Sigurd and Sigmund went wearily.

      ‘You’ve been a long time making your way to us, Ki,’ Rufus greeted her. Straight lips, cold eyes. He put his hand under her elbow, irritating Ki immensely. Was she blind, that she needed to be guided to the door? Lame, that she could not walk along? Sven, she rebuked herself sternly. She bowed her head.

      ‘I needed a time alone, Rufus. I fear that you may not understand. But I meant no offense or neglect to you. It was too great a tragedy, too sudden a rip in my life.’

      ‘Leave the girl alone!’ Cora barked from the doorway. ‘If she wants to explain, she’ll do it once and for all to everyone when we are all gathered. She needn’t undergo a private rebuke from every one in the household. I am sure she had her reasons, and we shall all hear them. But at the proper time, Rufus. Now let her go. Ki, you look like a beaten dog, and that’s the truth. No slight meant to you, as you well know. Hard it is to lose one, let alone three. When Sven’s father took the bloody cough and died … I won’t talk of it now, but I know the pain behind such looks. You know the way, Ki. Same room as always. Lars, fetch her a light down the hall. The beasts have been seen to, have they? Of course they need grain, you young idiot! If I don’t see to it all myself …’

      Ki felt swept along by a river into a bright common room of the house, cut free from Rufus’s grip by Cora’s tongue, to be washed down a hallway to a bedroom by Lars. She had not greeted any of the people clustered in the common room to receive her. And Cora was chattering on like a magpie to cover her grief and shock. Speeding up life to get past the bad parts, Sven had called it. Talking to everyone at once, seeing to every tiny detail as if they were all helpless babes. Ki wished that such a defense could work for her.

      ‘I’ll leave the candle here, Ki. Refresh yourself and rest a bit. It will be a long evening, and you have already been through much. Take your time. They have waited this long; it will do them no harm to wait a little more.’ Lars shut the heavy wooden door behind himself with a solid thunk.

      Ki sank onto the bed. It was thick with Cora’s best weavings and new sleeping furs. A white bowl rested on a stand by the draped window. Ki knew that the cool water in the graceful ewer beside it would be scented with fresh herbs. This was a room for ceremonious occasions. Cora had insisted that Ki and Sven spend their first night here after they made their agreement formal. They also slept here when they returned twice to present their children to the family. Sven told her that his father’s body had been laid out upon this bed. The room had seemed a colder place to Ki after that. She could take no comfort in the thickly padded bed or scented water or rich shagdeer hide on the floor. So she would take a note from Cora and hurry herself through this bad part.

      She washed her hands and face in the cool, scented water. She took down her hair and carefully redid the knots and weavings smoothly. She had no clean clothing to put on. She had left her things in the wagon. It would be too awkward to walk out past all those people to find clean things and return to change again. Ki was paralyzed by indecision. At any other time it would have been a minor dilemma. But now it brought a blackness crashing down on her, a depression no logic could lift. To go before them in this dusty skirt and blouse seemed an insult to their ceremony. To make a stir by going for clean garments seemed a vanity and an insult to Sven’s memory. She sank onto the bed and put her forehead in her hands. It was all too much. They wanted too much of her. She had nothing left to draw out of herself and give to their rite. She was empty, and her being here was an empty act. She could not decide what to do. She was tired of it all. She pressed her hands to her temples. Weariness, hatred, and anger – would she ever feel any other emotions?

      A tap at the door, and Cora was entering before Ki had even raised her head.

      ‘You look a little better, dear. No, I’ve taken liberties, and I hope you won’t mind them. As soon as word came. Well, you know me. I try to think of everything. It helps sometimes to think of everything at once. There’s a robe here in this chest. I wove it for Lydia as a gift, you know, a surprise, but I had not reckoned on what birthing that second huge boy of hers would do to her belly. So, naturally I never gave it to her, nor even showed it to her, for I didn’t want her to think I thought she had let herself go a bit. No one has seen it and I had set it aside for you even before … ah … word came. Weeks ago, in fact. It’s clean and fresh and new. I know you Romni don’t usually wear green but tonight is a night for our own customs, and I didn’t think you would mind. Something new and fresh, sometimes it gives you an extra bit of strength to go on, you understand. So I’ll just lay it out here for you.’

      Cora paused expectantly as she smoothed the robe out across the foot of the bed. Their eyes met. Cora’s eyes had always been dark and deeply shining. Ki had once hoped her children would inherit those compelling eyes. But now they were dull, as if her bright spirit had congealed there. Ki saw the mirror of her own anguish and despair. But there was no relief in finding that her suffering was shared. They were two fish, trapped in separate pools in a drying riverbed. Their tragedy separated them, and their courtesy was a sham between strangers.

      ‘It’s lovely, Cora. I’ve never felt much bound by the Romni traditions about green. Thank you. It is exactly what I needed right now.’ Ki hoped she sounded warm. All she felt was tired, and shamed by her dusty dress.

      ‘I’ll just go out, then, and let you make yourself ready. Not that you need to hurry. Lars told us all how tired you are. We’ll wait for you.’ Cora hurried out, fleeing from herself.

      Ki shut her eyes tightly, sat still for a moment. Then she rose. She stripped off her dusty clothes. She dampened a cloth in the scented water and smoothed it over her body. The robe slipped on coolly. Tiny yellow flowers had been worked at the throat and cuffs. It was a bit long for Ki, but surely no one would notice that tonight. She smoothed it over her hips and forced her spine to straighten.

      The common room was a long, narrow room with a low ceiling. It had no windows, but was dominated by a huge fireplace that blazed at one end of the room. The floor was of flat mortared stone, the walls of thick gray river rock and clay. They kept out the heat and cold alike. A long table stretched down the room. Folk crowded benches on both sides of it. The table was laden with platters of meat freshly taken from the huge fireplace, with fruit piled high in bowls, with steaming pots of vegetables, СКАЧАТЬ