The Song of Andiene - By Elisa Blaisdell Page 0,66
could flee into the forest, alone. No, he would not! He had played the coward enough, in his life. The tangled threads were of his weaving. He would stay and try to unknot them, one way or another.
All that day he made plans and abandoned them. “Here I am. Here I will stay,” he had said. How many others had promised that, and kept their vow? Twenty-three lindel trees grew in the clearing.
He sat at the far end of the clearing, looking out into the forest. The sun lay low behind the trees. Malesa was beside him before he realized that she had returned. She had gone to the house, stepping silently, and changed her clothes. Though the evening was cool, she wore only a thin shift of thornfruit silk.
Her hair hung loose in spicy scented waves, shadowy black against her pale skin. “It is Festival night,” she said, explaining before he had time to ask a question. “Our child’s birthday is tomorrow.”
Her skin was soft; her voice was sweet. Her eyes sparkled with light and aliveness and invitation. One day earlier, he would have been filled with rapture. Now … he would have more gladly embraced a serpent. He turned his face aside, so she could not read his grief and fear.
“You look weary,” she said.
“I am very tired.” To his ears, his voice sounded hoarse and stilted, like the men of his dream, forcing their long-dead lips to shape human words.
“Come and drink a glass of wine with me.”
“I will … what of our little dove?”
“Asleep,” she said. “She walked long and far on the forest paths with me today. The thought of her naming excited her, and so she played hard, even when I rested. She sleeps soundly. I carried her home. That is why you did not hear us return.”
She had spoken more words in a minute than she would willingly have used in a whole day. Ilbran’s heart was filled with dread for his daughter, that such explanations were necessary, but he forced himself to walk slowly, to match his strides to his wife’s graceful steps.
In the outer room of their home, the child lay cuddled in a nest of furs. Ilbran bent over her. Her breathing was soft and regular; her skin was cool. Slowly, he walked after Malesa into the other room.
A night-crake and two grasskits lay on the table; she had had good luck with her snares. She poured out the wine into wooden cups, her back turned to him. “Here, my love, take it and drink,” she said. He did not try to read her eyes, for fear of what she would see in his.
“I thank you.” He took the cup and looked down into its depths. Thornfruit wine, flavored with bitter herbs, fragrant and sharp, no different from the first time that he had tasted it. “Here I am. Here I will stay,” he had vowed. All vows can be broken, but what is the price?
“See if our little one is well,” he said. “It is not like her to be so weary.”
For a moment, he saw the rare look of fear on Malesa’s face, then she smiled and went acquiescently, setting down her cup on the floor. As the leather flap of the door settled into place behind her, Ilbran seized her cup and changed it with his.
His wife’s pale skin was flushed and her eyes were bright, as she returned. She looked more childlike than ever. “She is well,” she said. “Only tired from long walking. We will name her tomorrow.”
Ilbran took up his cup that had been hers. It smelled the same, the heavy savory fragrance. He drained it to the dregs, sweet thick thornfruit wine. As thick as blood. His throat knotted, but he forced himself to swallow. Then Malesa smiled in joy, and took up her cup and drank the wine that she had brewed.
Ilbran felt no fear, but simple weariness. As he watched her, her face seemed to grow older, more tired, more pale.
“I will see how our little one is,” he said. She turned to watch him as he entered the other room, but made no move to stop him.
The child slept soundly—too soundly, he thought. When he shook her and picked her up out of her nest of furs, her head fell back limply in his arms. He listened to her breathing, easy and deep as before, but that did not calm his sudden terror.