The Song of Andiene - By Elisa Blaisdell Page 0,63
blossoms promising a rich crop, bittery and sweet-snow bright and beautiful, the rich tassels of blaggorn, food for a family of many more than three. He looked beyond the clearing to the forest, dark suffocating leagues of it.
The trap had closed on him seven years before, and its jaws had never opened.
At that, he had been luckier than some. Ilbran rose and walked back inside their home. The walls were of thick stone, cut from the earth by men not bound by the law. It was a welcoming place, stored well with all their needs for winter and summer. And there in the corner, in its silver-mounted scabbard, was the sword he had never used, all that was left to remember one man who had misjudged the ways of the forest, and had died for it.
No one had dared their road in seven years. None might chance it for another seven.
Malesa was as content as any grasskit in its burrow. As she had said, she knew the ways of the forest. She was there now, leading her daughter along the many-branched paths.
She had grown more silent with the years. Only once had she spoken freely—the day that he first met her. After that, all had been said, or so he thought sometimes. He wondered if his daughter would ever have learned to speak, alone with her mother. A child must hear before it can talk.
But he had talked enough for two, told her all the stories of the wide world, all that a child could bear to hear. And now she chattered to him as freely as any songbird in autumn or spring.
That was not enough. He felt an aching need to speak to some stranger, hear some news of the world that he had been born into. He had misjudged his own nature. He was more restless than he would ever have guessed he would be.
Outside, the air had the misty brightness of winter. The sun was warm, but it was warmth that was hard to trust. Ilbran looked at the golden lindel tree, the tallest one, that stood by the doorway. It held its leaves in winter and summer, so he could not judge from it. On the forest trees, tiny buds were springing, forcing the old leaves to the ground.
Ilbran heard a shout of joy behind him as his daughter saw him and came running along the forest path, her dark hair flying out behind her. With every step she took, the herbs she had gathered spilled from her basket. He stooped and kissed her, and smoothed back her tangled hair, trying to comb it with his fingers.
“Here, little one, doveling, hold still. You have carried half the forest back with you in your hair.”
Malesa came to him more slowly, stepping along the path that curved beside the lindel trees. She smiled and leaned against him, but said nothing. He watched his daughter go running back along the path, gathering up the plants she had scattered. Jealousy stabbed him, as always, though he tried to hold it back. Never had Malesa let him go with her into the forest, yet she gladly took her daughter, and taught her all she knew.
“You teach her the plant lore young,” was all he said.
“No younger than I, when I first learned.”
“So many, many years ago,” he said, hoping to win a smile from her with his teasing, for as he told her, and the mirrored water must have shown her, she looked as barely grown from childhood as when he first saw her.
He won no smile from her, though. A strange look, almost of fear, came into her eyes and she studied his face intently. Then she shrugged herself loose from his arm, and stepped by him into the house.
Ilbran looked after her, but did not let himself be troubled. She had given him much joy, but he would never understand her moods and ways. The thornfruit flowers were all gathered. He turned to another work, gleaning the blaggorn, stripping the kernels from their stems, the meager second crop that ripened through the cool winter. He did what she had taught him. For every basketful, you throw a handful on the ground for a sacrifice.
“A sacrifice to whom?” he had asked.
She had smiled and remained silent, her usual response.
But he did what she advised, for she was wise in the ways of the land and the forest. That much he knew.