Beside Tegan in the tent, Osyr snored gently. He would sleep until dawn, sleep restless if she left him. Tegan slipped away from him and went to her tent. She needed rest, not memories, memories that Noya had stirred up, memories from a time that Tegan had pushed into the back of her mind. Damn Noya, anyway. Tegan thumped at her pillow and remembered a distant time, a scent of crushed, tender leaves.
In that long-ago clearing, a man crashed backward through the roses, landed on his shoulders, rolled to his feet and turned to face his pursuer.
By then, Tegan was in the absolute center of the blackberry patch, crouched in the smallest heap she could make of herself.
The man held a sword and carried a shield. The sword’s point made tiny circles in the air.
Tegan peered out from between blackberry branches. The swordsman concentrated his attention on the wildrose and the pathway he’d just torn through it.
“Give over, Lennor. You didn’t kill the old man; you won’t kill me. Go home.”
It was a woman’s voice, highpitched and hard-breathing, a woman hidden from Tegan by blackberries and wildrose.
“Duke Osyr is an evil man, but his son is weak, and that’s worse. It is not time for the old man to die. The Red Temple would have paid you for his death in the coin of sorrow, silver bits and pennies garnered from restless husbands and from wives dreaming of wealth.”
The man advanced toward the voice, struck at the wildrose, retreated.
“You tire? Give over, then. Would you die to steal from gamblers like your father, who came to the tables hoping to regain the losses of a bad season, a failed crop? Go home. Your father has a pair of fine colts this year, and you are a trainer of riding-beasts by nature, not a mercenary.”
The boy-a boy, not a man, and thin except for his hands and forearms, he would be good with riding-beasts, yes. His red livery did not fit him. He shook his head, staring at an empty wall of wildrose. Wild-eyed, his eyes squinted at a dull red glare as if a furnace of Hell blazed in the shadows. His hair fell across his face and Tegan winced, for he was helpless at that moment, blinded. He tossed his forelock aside and blinked away sweat or tears. The circles his sword made in the air were from fatigue, not skill.
He tensed, showing his intent before he moved, and raised his sword. He brought it down with all his strength.
It flew from his hand and spun through the air at the counterblow of an unseen blade. He tripped, reaching for empty air where his lost sword was not, and sprawled on his back with his head not far from Tegan’s hiding place. He panted like a winded riding-beast.
As motionless as flies in amber, the boy, Tegan, the clearing.
She stepped into the light. Tegan knew her. She was Diana, the huntress with a bow slung over her shoulders, the guardian of wild things. How could she be here? The gods had faded in these late days; withdrawn to the far corners of the world; Diana of the wild forests and Athena of the gray owls had gone away into the far lands where there was no time.
She could not be here. She wore red, or snowy white, a chiton that foamed around her bare arms as she came forward, or she wore silver armor that reflected red from the boy’s cheek, the blackberries. Something in her hand left a space in the air, a space where falling stars streaked across the night, a space of utter silence. Her face was terrible and beautiful.
Tegan loved her, worshiped her, could not have turned her eyes away if she died for it. Tegan wanted the power she saw, the majesty. She felt a terrible strength rise in her, a strength lent by the goddess herself, a feeling that she could do anything, go anywhere, be whatever she chose to be.
“Go,” the goddess said.
The boy fled, scrambling through the wildrose.
The goddess sighed. “Poor fool,” she whispered. She sheathed the Sword. It had a plain, beautiful blade marked with patterns in its dark and glossy metal, or the patterns were Tegan’s eyes playing tricks and they not there at all. The Sword’s plain hilt was marked with the white outline of a human eye.
There had never been a goddess. There was only a woman, not tall, in gray linen breeks and a tunic. She had a shirt tied round her waist by the sleeves. The woman reached down and picked up the boy’s discarded sword. She was not beautiful, but she had hair the color of ripe wheat, heavy hair bound in a knot at the back of her neck.
And in bending, she caught sight of Tegan, huddled in her thicket.
Now she’ll kill me, Tegan thought. And she thought, mother spins better linen than she wears; the weave is rough.
“Oh, bother,” the woman said. She stood up and pointed a finger at Tegan. “You. Come out of there.”
Tegan did, pushing away blackberry canes and catching the hem of her skirt behind her. She jerked it free.
“What did you see?” the woman asked.
“Darkness. Light. A boy overmatched.”
The woman frowned. “He wasn’t overmatched. He tired me, and I used a weapon that sent his own fears to threaten him. I shouldn’t have used it, but I didn’t want to kill him. You have a good eye for swordplay, though.” She examined the boy’s discarded sword, running her eyes and fingers along its length. Tegan felt dismissed, ignored.
“A goddess,” Tegan whispered.
“Oh, bother!” The woman held the boy’s sword and swung it twice, testing its heft, and seemed to decide to keep it. She untied the shirt from her waist and wrapped the sword in it. “Look, kid. The Red Temple may send guards to find out why Lennor doesn’t show up. Your story is, nothing happened. You picked some berries, that’s all. You didn’t see anything, hear me?”
She was a plain woman, not a goddess, but around her the morning light crackled with power.
“That’s a Sword! It’s real!”
“It’s a weapon,” the woman said. “Only that.”
“I’ll help you. I’ll come with you. Please.”
She had heard of women like this, women warriors who fought with swords and bows, who traveled in small bands and went wherever they chose to go, through the wild lands, into the towns, free as birds. They earned their bread by the sword, some said. The emperor paid them, others said, paid them to play tricks. No, to avenge the wronged. Both. Their leader carried one of the Swords? How wonderful.
The woman looked at Tegan with appraisal and Tegan wished a hole would open in the ground and swallow her, mousy hair, scratched knuckles, nails bitten to the quick, a nothing girl with freckles. She was too big all over, big nose, big hips, legs like a riding-beast’s and feet that were meant for workboots, perhaps, but never for slippers. Tegan hid one foot under the other one, both of them bare.
“You’re a widow’s child?”
Tegan nodded.
“Good at your letters.” The woman was not the goddess, but her eyes pierced Tegan like knives. Hazel eyes, cat eyes. “Skilled at needlework, strong. A dreamer. A dreamer who wants the wide world, and beautiful lovers, and silks to wear, and glory. You want to be a great lady, loved for your honor, your generosity. But you have a dark side, a part of you that wants too much.”
How did she know? Tegan swallowed back tears and bowed her head.
“You must choose your life yourself. Remember that.”
The woman’s eyes dismissed her. She turned away, and Tegan could not bear it, to be left behind, to have seen wonder and never to see it again. She reached out, to hold the hem of the woman’s tunic, to beg her.
The woman’s hand moved to unsheathe the Sword she carried. The clearing filled with the sound of beating wings, with the face of a harpy, with terror.
“Pick your berries,” a voice said. “You will not remember what you have seen.”
Tegan dressed in red for the battle, a divided skirt rather than the breeches she favored, but the children would look for a lady in red, and breeks on women might confuse them. She fastened her sword at her hip and covered it with a dun cloak, for she had riding to do, and best she were dull of color for it.