“In return I have two questions to ask you. Why are you all here? Why so many, and from so far, at this ill season? What persuaded you to come? Was it a dream, a voice in your head, some vaguer feeling? If so, is it possible that that dream, that voice, that feeling was, without your knowing it, the same thing that I felt when I knew in my heart that the snows did not hear me?
“My second question is this. Is there a woman here from Woodbourne, in the south, a woman of the lineage of Dirna Urlasdaughter?”
“Yes, of course I’m here!” snapped Meena from the ground. “Help me up, some of you. Look sharp! Don’t hang about!”
The man she had shoved off the hummock lifted her to her feet and stood her on it, and the people just below her cleared to either side so that everyone could see her. Her head went back and her chin stuck out, as if she were facing down an assembly of unjust accusers.
“Well, here I am,” she snapped. “Take a good look at me. I’m Meena Urlasdaughter from Woodbourne, and I’m here to tell you the old gaffer’s right. Something’s up, and he knows it, and I know it, and if you’ve got any sense in your heads you know it, and that’s why you’re here, like he told you.
“I’ll tell you how I know it. First snows, one of our women goes into the forest and leaves a couple of sacks of barley under the cedars by the lake, and sings to the cedars. Dirna started it, because Faheel told her, like he told Reyel to sing to the snows, and we’ve done it ever since. It’s what keeps the forest like it is, with the sickness in it, so that men can’t go in there, and the Emperor can’t get at us like he used to, any more than the horsemen can get past the glacier at us to come murdering and looting. At least you know about the sickness. None of you men who live along by the forest will go in there, not for more than a minute or two, like my fool of a son-in-law tried the day I’m going to tell you about. Went in to look for my daughter Selva who’d gone to sing to the cedars, and came out all dizzy and sick, and stupider than he is by nature. But not so stupid he didn’t send for me, which he should have done in the first place, and me and Tilja here had to go in and get my daughter out.
“Wait. There’s more to it than that. We found my daughter lying by the lake, unconscious, and we couldn’t wake her, so we brought her home on the sled, and she didn’t stir for six whole days, and then she couldn’t remember anything of what had happened to her, nor why she had this mark on her forehead I’ve never seen the like of. Since Dirna’s day we’ve sung to the cedars, I tell you, and nothing like this has happened in all those years, only now it has, the selfsame year, what’s more, as the old gaffer went up to sing to the snows and they didn’t hear him, and we’ve got this weather no one’s ever known to happen before.
“I tell you something’s wrong with the forest, just like something’s wrong with the mountains, and if we don’t do something about it the sickness will be gone, and next thing the Emperor will be sending his tax collectors up here, with his armies to back them up, and they won’t just be after this year’s taxes either. It’ll be all the taxes we’ve not being paying these last twenty generations! And if you think what we’ve been talking about, Alnor and me, is all just chance-come things, might have happened any of these years, only now they’ve all come together, then you’re bigger fools than I took you for.”
She stopped abruptly, and the man helped her down onto the hummock. The drummer beat a short roll and a number of people put up their hands to speak. The convenors took them in turn. Most of them simply wanted to confirm that they’d had a dream, or some odd feeling telling them to come. One woman said she hadn’t meant to until the last minute, but her old dog had tugged at her cloak and pretty well led her to the Gathering. Then a burly man on the slope opposite Tilja said, “This is all very well, and something strange may be happening, if you want to believe in that sort of thing. For myself, I don’t, but supposing I did, what then? What are we supposed to do about it? Try if anyone else has better luck, singing to the snows and the trees? Bit late for that, this year, anyway. We’re half through winter already, and the time for the main snowfall is come and gone two months back, so how are we going to tell if something’s worked, or it hasn’t? That’s till next winter, anyway.
“So what I say is, let’s see how it all goes for a few months, and what sort of a spring we get, and so on, and maybe talk about it again here midsummer, if anyone’s still bothered. And then maybe next fall, after Alnor’s gone and done his stuff in the mountains and Meena’s daughter’s done hers in the forest, we’ll get our snowfall like we always have, and we’ll know this year was just some kind of freak. Or maybe we won’t, and that’ll be the time to get our heads together and sort out what to do about it.”
There was a buzz of agreement.
“Told you so,” growled Meena, though she had done no such thing. “Wait and see, wait and see—only idea in their thick heads. Dolts! This time they’re going to wait, and see they’re too late.”
“What do you think we should be doing then, ma’am?” asked the man who’d helped her.
“Go and look . . . ,” she began, but somebody else was already speaking and she was shushed into silence. There was a rule that nobody could speak twice, so she didn’t get a chance to tell the assembly what she thought before the convenors closed the discussion. Since nobody had had any other suggestions than wait and see, that was put to the vote and carried on a show of hands. The drum beat three times to signal that it was over.
Meena grabbed Tilja by the arm and dragged herself up.
“All right,” she said, “if that’s how they want it. Go and find the blind gaffer—Alnor or something. I’ve got to talk to him.”
Tilja hurried off, worming her way as best she could through the crowd as they drifted back toward the fires and the stalls. Halfway to the platform she was almost knocked off her feet by someone weaseling through in the other direction. He muttered an apology without looking, but she managed to grab his arm. It was the boy who’d been with old Alnor.
“Hey! I’m in a hurry,” he said. “Leave off, will you?”
“My grandmother—she’s Meena—wants to talk to Alnor,” she said.
“That makes two of them,” he said. “And the old boy’s raging. Can you get her across to the platform?”
“When it’s a bit clearer. Just don’t let him go away, or I’m in trouble.”
“Uh-huh—she looks a right handful.”
“No, she’s all right. She’s great.”
“If you say so. See you in a bit.”
And he was gone, leaving Tilja instantly furious. What right had he? And then not giving her a chance to show what she thought of him? Seething, she made her way back to Meena and found her on her hummock. Most of the others had gone and there was room to move.
“Didn’t take you long,” said Meena.
“I ran into the boy,” said Tilja. “Alnor wants to talk to you, too. He’s at the platform.”
“All right, then. Let’s be going.”
With Tilja’s help she picked her way down the slope and hobbled over to the platform. They found Alnor just in front of it, leaning on his staff with his blind eyes seeming to stare in fury at the retreating crowd. Everything about him, even his stillness, expressed his anger. He seemed unaware of their coming, and Meena stood and studied him in silence for a little. The boy, Tilja was glad to see, had disappeared.
“So you’re Alnor Ortahlson,” said Meena abruptly. “I’ve heard of you. It was your son died rafting, right?”