She thought she had found it when Arkati came to the House of Birth.
Arkati was the girl-wife of one of the Priests, a pretty thing scarcely out of childhood; younger, in fact, than Deoris herself. A fair-skinned, fair-haired, diminutive girl with sweet pleading eyes, Arkati had been brought to the Temple of Caratra a few weeks before the proper time, because she was not well; her heart had been damaged by a childhood illness, and they wished to strengthen her before her child was born. All of them, even the stern Karahama, treated the girl with tenderness, but Arkati was weak and homesick and would cry at nothing.
She and Deoris, it soon turned out, had known one another since childhood. Arkati clung to Deoris like a lost kitten.
Karahama used influence, and Deoris was given what freedom she wished to spend with Arkati. She noticed with pleasure that Deoris had a good instinct for caring for the sick girl; she followed Karahama's instructions with good sense and good judgment, and it seemed as if Deoris's hard rebellion gave the girl-mother strength. But there was restraint in their friendship, born of Deoris's fear.
More than fear, it was a positive horror. Wasn't Arkati afraid at all? She never tired of dreaming and making plans and talking about her baby; she accepted all the inconveniences, sickness and weariness, unthinkingly, even with laughter. How could she? Deoris did not know, and was afraid to ask.
Once, Arkati took Deoris's hand in hers, and put it against her swollen body, hard; and Deoris felt under her hand an odd movement, a sensation which filled her with an emotion she could not analyze. Not knowing whether what she felt was pleasure or acute annoyance, she jerked her hand roughly away.
"What's wrong?" Arkati laughed. "Don't you like my baby?"
Somehow this custom, speaking of an unborn child as if already a person, made Deoris uncomfortable. "Don't be foolish," she said roughly—but for the first time in her entire life, she was consciously thinking of her own mother, the mother they said had been gentle and gracious and lovely, and very like Domaris, and who had died when Deoris was born. Drowned in guilt, Deoris remembered that she had killed her mother. Was that why Domaris resented her now?
She said nothing of all this, only attended to what she was taught with a determination born of anger; and within a few days Karahama saw, with surprise, that Deoris was already beginning to show something like skill, a deftness and intuitive knowledge that seemed to equal years of experience. When the ordinary term of service was ended, Karahama asked her—rather diffidently, it is true—to stay on for another month in the Temple, working directly with Karahama herself.
Somewhat to her own surprise, Deoris agreed, telling herself that she had simply promised Arkati to remain with her as long as possible. Not even to herself would she admit that she was beginning to enjoy the feeling of mastery which this work gave her.
III
Arkati's child was born on a rainy night when will-o'-the-wisps flitted on the seashore, and the wind wailed an ominous litany. Karahama had no cause to complain of Deoris, but somewhere in the dark hours the injured heart ceased to beat, and the fight—pitifully brief, after all—ended in tragedy. At sunrise, a newborn child wailed without knowing why, in an upper room of the Temple, and Deoris, sick to the bone, lay sobbing bitterly in her own room, her head buried in her pillows, trying to shut out memory of the sounds and sights that would haunt her in nightmares for the rest of her life.
"You mustn't lie here and cry!" Karahama bent over her, then sat down at her side, gathering up Deoris's hands in hers. Another girl came into the little dormitory, but Karahama curtly motioned her to leave them alone, and continued, "Deoris, listen to me, child. There was nothing we could have done for—"
Deoris's sobs mixed with incoherent words.
Karahama frowned. "That is foolishness. The child did not kill her! Her heart stopped; you know she has never been strong. Besides—" Karahama bent closer and said, in her gently resolute voice, so like Domaris's and yet so different, "You are a daughter of the Temple. We know Death's true face, a doorway to further life, and not something to be feared—"
"Oh, leave me alone!" Deoris wailed miserably.
"By no means," said Karahama firmly. Self-pity was not in her category of permitted emotions, and she had no sympathy with the involved reasoning that made Deoris curl herself up into a forlorn little huddle and want to be left alone. "Arkati is not to be pitied! So stop crying for yourself. Get up; bathe and dress yourself properly, and then go and tend Arkati's little daughter. She is your responsibility until her father may claim her, and also you must say protective spells over her, to guard her from the imps who snatch motherless children—"
Rebelliously, Deoris did as she was told, assuming the dozen responsibilities which must be taken: arranging for a wet-nurse, signing the child with protective runes, and—because a child's true name was a sacred secret, written on the rolls of the Temple but never spoken aloud except in ritual—Deoris gave the child the "little name" by which she would be called until she was grown: Miritas. The baby squirmed feebly in her arms, and Deoris thought, with unhappy contempt, Protective spells! Where was the spell that could have saved Arkati?
Karahama watched stoically, more grieved than she would say. They had all known that Arkati would not live; she had been warned, when she married, that she should not attempt to bear a child, and the Priestesses had given her runes and spells and arcane teachings to prevent this. Arkati had willfully disobeyed their counsel, and had paid for this disobedience with her life. Now there was another motherless child to be fostered.
But Karahama had known something else, for she understood Deoris better even than Domaris. Unlike as they were, both Deoris and Karahama had inherited from Talkannon a rugged and stubborn determination. Resentment, more than triumph, would spur Deoris on; hating pain and death, she would vow to conquer it. Where being forced to witness such a tragedy might have lost another neophyte, driving her away in revulsion, Karahama felt that this would place a decisive hand on Deoris.
Karahama said nothing more, however; she was wise enough to let the knowledge ripen slowly. When all had been done for the newborn child, Karahama told Deoris that she might be excused from other duties for the remainder of the day. "You have had no sleep," she added dryly, when Deoris would have thanked her. "Your hands and eyes would have no skill. Mind that you rest!"
Deoris promised, in a strained voice; but she did not ascend the stairway to the dormitory reserved for the women who were serving their season in the Temple. Instead, she slipped out by a side entrance, and ran toward the House of the Twelve, with only one thought in her mind—the lifelong habit of carrying all her sorrows to Domaris. Her sister would certainly understand her now, she must!
A summer wind was blowing, moist with the promise of more rain; Deoris hugged her scarf closely about her neck and shoulders, and ran wildly across the lawns. Turning a sharp corner she almost tumbled against the stately form of Rajasta, who was coming from the House. Barely pausing to recover her balance, Deoris stammered breathless words of apology and would have run on, but Rajasta detained her gently.
"Look to your steps, dear child, you will injure yourself," he cautioned, smiling. "Domaris tells me you have been serving in Caratra's Temple. Have you finished with your service there?"
"No, I am only dismissed for the day." Deoris spoke civilly, but twitched with impatience. Rajasta did not seem to notice.
"That service will bring you wisdom and understanding, little daughter," he counselled. "It will make a woman of a child." He laid his hand for a moment, in blessing, on the tangled, feathering curls. "May peace and enlightenment follow thy footsteps, Deoris."