Free Woman Who Loved the Moon by Elizabeth A. Lynn Page A

bird to the table and rolled up her sleeves. Akys was poking up the fire. “I chased a fox from a grouse,” Jael said. “Throw some herbs into the water.”
    In bed, under two quilts, they talked. “Why do men go to war?” said Akys.
    “For wealth, or power, or lands,” said Jael.
    “Why should anyone want those things?”
    “Why are you thinking about it? Try to sleep.”
    “Do you think She is angry with us, Jael, for something we have done, or not done?”
    “I do not know,” Jael answered. She was glad of the darkness, glad that Akys could not see her face.
    “They have a god who lives in fire, these men of Rys.”
    “How do you know?”
    “The smith told me. He must like blood, their god.”
    “Hush,” said Jael.
    Finally Akys wept herself into an exhausted sleep. Jael held her tightly, fiercely, keeping the nightmares away. So Akys had held her, through earlier nights.
    In the morning they heard the children shrilling and calling to the herds. “What are they doing?” wondered Akys.
    “Taking the cattle to the summer pasture.”
    “But why, when it is so late—ah. They’ll be safer higher up. Will the children stay with them?”
    Jael didn’t know.
    That night, when she wrapped her cloak around her, Akys stood up as if to bar the door. “No, Jael, you can’t go back tonight. What if they come, and find you alone?”
    Jael said, “They won’t find me.”
    “You are young, and beautiful. I am old, and a witch, and under Her protection. Stay with me.”
    Under her cloak Jael’s hands clenched together. “I must go,” she said. “I’ll come back in the morning. They won’t come at night, Akys, when they can’t see, not in strange country. They’ll come in daylight, if they come at all. I’ll come back in the morning.”
    “Take one of the knives.”
    “I don’t dare. I’d probably cut myself in the dark.”
    “Don’t go,” pleaded Akys.
    “I must.”
    At last she got away.
    At the cave, she would not look at the spyeyes. She had told Akys the truth, they would not come at night, she was sure of that. But in the morning... She twisted her hands together until her fingers hurt. What have you chosen, woman of Reorth?
    She couldn’t sleep. She sat in the cavern with her machines, banks of them. With them she could touch anyplace on Methys, she could change the climate, trouble the seas, kill....The bracelets on her wrists shimmered with power. She dulled them. If only she could sleep. She rose. Slowly, she began to walk, pacing back and forth, back and forth, from one side of the cave to the other, chaining herself to it with her will.
    You may not go out, she commanded herself. Walk. You may not go out. It became a kind of delirium. Walk to that wall. Now turn. Walk to that wall. Turn. Do not impede. Walk. This is desirable. Walk. Turn. You may not go out.
     
    * * *
     
    In the morning, when the machines told her the sun was up and high, she left the cave.
    She went down the path toward the hut. The smell of smoke tormented her nostrils. She passed the pool, went through the trees that ringed it, and came out near the river. The cabin seemed intact. She walked toward it, and saw what she had not seen at first: the door, torn from its hinges, lying flat on the tramped-down, muddied grass.
    She went into the cabin. Akys lay on the bed, on her side. There was blood all around her, all over the bed and floor. She was naked, but someone had tossed her sheepskin cloak across her waist and legs. Jael walked to her. Her eyes were open, her expression twisted with determination and pain. Her stiff right arm had blood on it to the elbow. Jael’s foot struck something. She bent to see what it was. It was a bloody knife on the stained floor.
    Jael looked once around the cabin. The raiders had broken down the door, to find a dead or dying woman, and had left. It was kind of them not to burn or loot the tiny place, she thought.
    She walked from the hut. Smoke eddied still from the village