The Riddle - Alison Croggon [103]
“Can they tell me about the Treesong?” she asked.
“They keep the Song,” the old woman said.
Maerad waited, holding her breath, but Mirka said nothing more; she was still staring into space, as if Maerad were not there. Maerad leaned forward and touched her shoulder, and the old woman blinked and looked up, as if she had just awoken from a dream. Her face collapsed into a grimace of pain, and she clutched her head.
“Are you all right?” asked Maerad.
“Na, na, child, I am just sore-headed. It happens when you are old. It will happen to you one day. . . .” Mirka started mumbling something that Maerad couldn’t understand, and Maerad thought with frustration about what she had just said.
“Can you remember anything else about the Wise Kindred?” she asked.
“The Wise Kindred?” said Mirka sharply. “What are you talking about, child? They are the stuff of children’s tales, no more. Why do you ask?”
“But you just said . . .” Maerad began, and then gave up. Perhaps Mirka really didn’t remember what she had said, but whether she did or not, it was clear she wasn’t going to tell Maerad anything more.
TWO nights later, Maerad dreamed of Hem. It had nothing of a foredream’s dreadful clarity; but she hoped it was some kind of true dreaming nevertheless. She was sitting somewhere in bright sunshine, next to her brother. Hem had a big, white bird on his shoulder and he was leaning back against a dark-leaved tree. He looked older than she remembered him, taller and rangier, and his skin was darker, but he gazed at her with the same blue eyes. In his hand he held a smooth orange fruit, which he was cutting with a small wooden-handled knife. They were laughing, although Maerad couldn’t remember why.
The dream passed into other dreams that Maerad didn’t remember, but she awoke with a small easing of the cold despair she had felt since she had found herself in Mirka’s house. Hem was still alive, and was thinking of her; she was sure of that. She was not entirely alone in the world. And it was time for her to leave.
She didn’t need to say anything to Mirka. The old woman merely looked at her and nodded.
“You are well now,” she said. “You will wish to go.”
“Yes,” said Maerad.
They said nothing further about it until after breakfast, and after Maerad had helped Mirka with her morning tasks. Then Maerad took out her pack and sorted through it. She still had some of the hard traveling biscuit, enough to last two weeks, and some dried fruit and nuts; the cooking gear had gone with Cadvan and Darsor, so there would be no hot meals. But it was autumn, and there would be wild berries and nuts and other things she could gather, perhaps, on her way. Her bottle of medhyl was almost full. She filled her water bottle from the stream and then packed everything away.
Experimentally, she swung the pack onto her back. It didn’t feel as heavy as she had feared it would after her illness. She put it down and looked inside the pack again. She drew out the little black wooden cat she had carried since that day, long ago, when she and Cadvan had found Hem, and swinging up her pack again, went outside to find Mirka.
Mirka was not far away, sitting on her favorite fishing knoll; Inka was at her feet, snoring. Already two trout lay in the basket beside her, their iridescent scales breaking up the sunlight; she was catching as many as she could, to smoke for the frozen winter months ahead. Maerad sat down beside her and Mirka grunted in acknowledgment, her eyes fixed on the shining line trembling over the water.
“I’ve nothing much to give you, for what you’ve done for me,” said Maerad. “You saved my life.”
Mirka turned to face her, her blue eyes sparkling and present. “I need nothing,” she said. “You were a gift from the mountains.”
“I’d like to give you something, all the same.” She held out the little cat, and Mirka took it. “I found this, a while ago. At the same time that I found my brother. It’s Pilanel, I think.”
Mirka took the little cat and inspected it. “Yes, it is a Pilani carving,” she said. “Some child loved