In Annakey’s arms was the doll of the summer meadow and the sheepcote. She looked at me silently, begging me to see what I would not see.
“Greppa Lowmeadow has announced that your wedding day will take place on the same day that Renoa is named Dollmage. It is strange. I thought you loved Manal.... Ah. This is why you took so long. It is good,” I said, and took the sheepcote greedily from her arms. It pleasured me to look at her work. Somehow it was sweeter, the way a meal is sweeter when prepared by hands other than your own.
“I will add my power to it,” I said.
“There is no need, Dollmage. Can you not see?” She reminded me so much of Vilsa at that moment. Her presumption took all the joy out of my seeing. She had lost her fear of me. Then she said, “Manal believed that I agreed to marry Areth?”
“He did not believe him, until Areth described your breasts to him.”
Annakey clutched at her promise doll. Her head hung, and I could not see her face for her wild hair. “What did Manal do?”
“A strange thing,” I said, looking closely at the sheepcote. I could find no imperfections. “He began to build a house. He is not supposed to build a house until I have built it for the village doll. I will not punish him under the law. I see that his madness is a result of his suffering.
Finally, she raised her head. Her mouth was not smiling. It was clamped shut, as if she were carrying a great burden. I looked into her eyes.What was it about her eyes? I wanted to be pleased that finally her frowning doll had won and vindicated my powers, but what was it about her eyes?
“You say he is building?” she asked.
“Yes.”
“A house?”
“Yes,” I answered irritably, adding, “I have warned him it will fall unless I have made the doll of it first, but he builds tirelessly.”
What was it in her eyes?
“Dollmage,” she said,“Areth came upon me in the mountains and . . . and violated me.”
So. So. That was what was in her eyes: a sadness too deep. You must believe me, I had not wanted her to frown at such a price.
“You must go to the House of Women and ask for justice,” I said at last, and quietly.
She nodded and closed her eyes and I saw her eyelids tremble. “My second promise, Dollmage, was to save my people. The robber people — I know they plan next to steal a woman. Let me help you make a plan to save our people.”
“Make your contest doll,” I said.
“The villagers must be warned,” she said. “None of the women or children should go out alone....Tell them.”
“Common sense tells them that.”
“Please,” Annakey said.
“Very well. I will go to Weepers Stump today” Then my heart reached out to her and I said, “Before you begin your doll for the contest, I have another thing for you to do.”
She had turned away. Now she turned back again.
“Would you leave Manal vulnerable? I want you to make a doll of his house and bring it to me. Who knows what will happen if he continues?”
I could scarcely see her face in the twilight. She knew I had asked her to do this out of compassion for her. “I will do it,” she said, “but you must know, I will not keep my promise to Areth.”
“A promise breaker can never be Dollmage,” I said.
“Why do you say that, if there is no danger that I will be Dollmage?” she asked.
I stammered a moment, and then said, “A promise breaker is in danger of her life.”
“There are worse things than dying,” she said.
“That is why your promise doll frowns,” I called after her, for she was walking away from me. “It frowns in disapproval over a broken promise.”
Annakey disappeared into the twilight. I heard Manals saw make a long, hard song until past dark.
That night Annakey went to the House of Women. The men endured the House of Women out of long tradition and feared it a little. Men are the bosses. Even I, as Dollmage, have no say as to what crop will go where, or when to build a new plough or who will attend to the hunt and who to the fences. They do not ask me. But we have, in the House of Women, done a thing or two. Once, it came out in the House that Dug Shallowslough was hitting his wife. Each woman went home and did not please her man until he told Dug to hit no one less hairy than himself. Dug was the hairiest man in the village. He became a very peaceful man.
As I said, that night Annakey went to the House of Women. Grandmother Keepmoney sat at the door, stick in hand. She stood up and held the stick out to prevent Annakey from entering.
“You may not enter,” Grandmother Keepmoney said. Annakey stood still, unbelieving. “Why?”
“It is my duty to prevent the unworthy.”
“You never prevent anyone.”
“Tonight I do.”
Annakey swallowed. “How am I unworthy?” Grandmother Keepmoney put her stick down and leaned on it. “Greppa Lowmeadow says that you came to her and said you would not keep your promise to marry her son Areth with whom you have shared your body.”
Annakey’s head bent as if her promise doll were dragging it down. “No. That is why I have come, to ask for justice. I did not share. I was forced.”
Grandmother Keepmoney put up her stick again wearily. “So you say. I hear otherwise.”
“From who?”
“Areth Lowmeadow himself.”
“Have you ever known me to lie, Grandmother Keepmoney?”
“Perhaps you do not know what is real, child.”
Annakey stared. The old woman looked at her and her face drew down and her shoulders sagged.
“I believe you, child. Some will not. It does not matter. I cannot let you in, a promise breaker. Only deny that you have broken your promise, and I will let you in.”
Annakey said nothing.
Grandmother Keepmoney said, “Grave consequences will come of this, Annakey. The people are afraid, and they speak as if they want to take their fear out on you.”
“I will ask Areth to release me from my promise,” Annakey said. Then, because Grandmother Keepmoney still guarded the door, she walked away.
My people.
Now you understand much.
Will you forgive Annakey, free her, ask for her forgiveness? No, perhaps not, but I see you do not touch your stones so lovingly. No matter. Even if you are persuaded, Areth will let fly his stone, and that is enough to kill her. Now that the truth is out and he has lost the respect of his people, he has nothing to lose. You see as I do that he will kill Annakey, and anyone in the way of that rock.You forget, though, that I have a secret still.
Yes, Manal, rub her wrists, and give her bread to eat.
Why, you ask, for she has broken a promise and brought this fate upon our village. What good is bread to a dead girl? That is true.
That I cannot deny.
Nevertheless, listen on.
That night I stared at the sheepcote a long time. How old I felt, how pressed down and part of the earth I felt.Then I saw, in one of the trees of the sheepcote doll, a tiny nest, and in it, three almost invisible eggs. I could not stop the welling tears.
I went to Areth Lowmeadow.
“Will you release her?” I asked, low and in the dark. “No,” he said.
“If you do not, she may die.”
“Let her die,” he said.
“Is this your love?” I asked, and then I grasped his promise doll in my hand. I took my carving knife and slashed it across his doll, once, between the head and the body