She took in the plain of fields nestled below; the abutting clearing and nine roundhouses; and then farther to the north, the woodland they had just left; and farther still, the bog. At its center, she could make out the dark pool of Black Lake. She marveled that the world stretched on and on, that all she knew of it was so small. She had been told she lived on a vast island but even from her high perch, she could see no evidence of the surrounding sea. She had been told, too, that the island was divided into territories, each ruled by a chieftain and inhabited by a particular tribe, perhaps fifteen territories in total, though an exact count was difficult to make with borders always shifting as old feuds erupted, as new alliances were struck.
She looked to the west, could just make out the purple-gray shadow of the distant highlands. Those highlands formed a different territory and were settled by a different tribe and chieftain. Her tribe occupied the territory abutting the highlands, a sprawling lowland plain dotted with settlements much like Black Lake.
The druids traveled the island, setting down roots in a particular settlement for a moon or two before moving on to the next. No chieftain knew the land, the history, the laws, the intricacies of the tribes the way the druids did. Nor was any chieftain able to divine the will of the gods. She thought of her tribe’s chieftain, whom they simply called Chieftain. He was mighty, wealthy, yes, yet even he would drop to bended knee in the presence of a druid, a true overlord.
She would like to have lingered, gazing toward those highlands, imagining the sea that lay beyond. Today, though, her mind churned. The silver in her pocket. Arc’s promised gift. She galloped a few steps, fell again in line with him. Eventually they came to a stand of beech and, in their shadow, a bed of bluish-purple sweet violets, more than she had ever seen. Her breath caught at the sight, the idea that he had planted them for her.
On their knees, as the sun fell lower in the sky, Devout and Arc gathered blooms and leaves, careful not to take too much, careful not to pinch off stems holding unopened flowers. Before that evening’s festivities, she would scrub herself with dried moss on the timber causeway that extended out over the bog’s pool, lather her hair, and rinse it with the brew of chamomile so that it would glint in the firelight. Most of all, though, she needed to think about how beholden she had made herself to Arc by gathering his sweet violets, to decide whether she should return Young Smith’s amulet or wear it for all to see. It seemed as momentous a decision as she would ever make.
“I’ve still got to prepare for tonight,” she said. As the words left her mouth, her eyes fell to her laden sack. Arc would always bring her sweet violets. He would always bring her joy. At that moment, he laid his hand on her cheek, and she leaned her head slightly, putting weight on his palm. She took three breaths, strange breaths, and felt jittery, light-headed.
“I’ll go, then,” he said, smiling.
Once he was gone, she slumped onto the trunk of a fallen beech. Had Young Smith set her reeling in quite the same way? Was that reasonable to ask when, as far back as she could remember, she had toiled in the fields with Arc? She knew she was prideful, aspiring. With the amulet on her palm, she had been uncharitable toward Reddish, jealous in truth. Was it only pride that had driven her to so recklessly want the amulet, to desire Young Smith? She sat there, stroking leaf litter and decay. She whispered to Mother Earth, promising humility and the amulet returned to Young Smith until she better understood her mind.
She turned her thoughts to the words she would speak to Young Smith and reached into the pocket of her cape, anticipating the craftsmanship, the grace. Her fingers felt only hide, the threads holding the pocket in place. She probed each corner, the emptiness. She held open the pocket and looked, but the amulet was not there.
She fell to her hands and knees, hunting among leaf litter as the sun fell lower still, and then grazed the horizon. She galloped down the steep slope of Edge—feet flying, stumbling, catching herself. At the place where Young Smith had given her the amulet, she dropped again to her knees and searched until the sun was gone, until there was scarcely time to make it back to the clearing and begin the collection rounds with the other maidens—her hair dull and tangled, her skin ripe with the odor of panic and toil.
She wept, face in her hands, but only for a moment. Then she wept as she ran through the woodland and then across the clearing to her roundhouse and the fresh, sweet scent of the rushes newly laid over the earthen floor, spread there in deference to Mother Earth.
What would Devout say to Young Smith? How would she explain the cross that did not rest against her throat, that she had not returned to him? Oh, how he would despise her, she who had lost his prize.
5.
DEVOUT
Nine maidens clustered outside Devout’s roundhouse, chatting excitedly as they awaited the start of the Feast of Purification. She hung back at the pack’s rear, her cape tightly bound at her neck. She counted as she breathed, working to slow a heart not yet settled from riffling through brush and debris and stumbling homeward from the heights of Edge. The collection began, as always, with the lowliest roundhouses, and, quite truthfully, Devout’s household was lowly. Unlike the others at Black Lake, it was not a clan united by blood but rather a ragtag group of eleven that had come together piecemeal. Her mother had taken a hand with a single brother as her mate. That brother was poisoned by the same pottage of mushrooms, barley, and venison that had caused Devout’s father to grip his belly and shit and vomit, and then grow yellow and convulse, until breath came no more. By similar misfortune, each member of the household—Devout, her mother, Old Man, an orphan called Sullen, another widow called Second Hand Widow, and her brood of six—lacked the net of kin with whom they would otherwise reside.
Reddish counted to three, and the maidens called out, “Mother Earth is coming.” Devout’s mother appeared in the doorway and, as was their custom, said, “Welcome, Mother Earth. Abide with us.” She held out a small loaf. The maidens accepted the offering toward their feast, and in return filed through the doorway. They walked sunwise around the blazing firepit at the center of the roundhouse, a solemn procession that prepared a household to receive Mother Earth. As she paraded, Devout glanced toward her mother and saw her bewilderment that Devout trailed, bedraggled, at the pack’s rear.
The next household was again small in number, and the maidens were neither surprised nor disappointed when they left with a second meager loaf. The two remaining hand households promised more. Each had been blessed with fertility and was large enough that the clan could weather misfortune come to a few. The first household, for instance, bore the burden of a twelve-year-old blind boy called Lark without hesitation, perhaps because he sang sweetly, perhaps because he prepared the clan’s meals with surprising expertise. From that household, the maidens gleefully collected a cauldron of Lark’s barley flavored with sorrel, and from the next, a sizable vessel of the butter the hands had mostly gone without for the final moon of Fallow. They made their parade, then moved on to the five roundhouses belonging to the tradesmen clans, first to the Tanners, where they knew to keep their hopes in check. While any tradesman had more to spare than a hand, the Tanners were known misers. And more, Old Tanner had not a single brother, and of the seven children his mate had birthed only two survived. The woman produced a flagon and, with chin tipped high, handed it to Sullen. This, when the maidens rightly knew it would hold mead rather than the preferred wheaten beer.