She had torn the vines free and taken them back to her fire. Placing them on a pile of fresh picked fir needles, she had burned the vines and the fir, mixed the ashes with her own menstrual blood, and added ground minerals of the earth. Shehad pressed the mixture into the wounds to stain and mark them forever.
Her heart was heavy at the thought of her children being cared for by others, and broken at the knowledge that her decision had separated her forever from her mate. But she had placed her hands against the Earth and the Earth had spoken of the great danger and deep change, as deadly to them all as the three waves of the floods that had destroyed the world. And the trees had sealed her vow.
Now she stood, marked and tattooed and hurting, with the women at the entrance of the womb chamber, among the daughters of the Staff Bearers, selected women from each of the tribes. They knew of her choice. They knew of Make War’s choice. They feared what the changes might mean, though no one had asked them about what they had learned.
The Women of the Womb who guarded Old Mother now stood a little apart from her, accepting her vow, as they did with Make War. The two who had heard the words of prophecy were with them, yet they stood all alone.
Motion caught her eye. The Staff Bearer of Salt Tribe had left her campsite and was striding up the royal road that ran to the wall joining the Hunter’s Circle and the Womb Circle. Silence fell across the hilltop as she climbed. The nighttime preparations at each family circle halted, all eyes watching. Warrior Woman of Blood and Battle followed the Staff Bearer of Salt Tribe to the boundary of the women’s court, at the place where the two circles touched.
The Staff Bearer of Salt Tribe stepped through the narrow outer opening into the men’s circle.
The men guarding there stepped aside, shock on their faces at the presence of a woman on their side of the hill.
Bare branches of the hawthorn trees shivered as the Earth reacted to the shock. No staff Bearer had stepped into the men’scircle in many years. Warrior Woman stopped outside the men’s circle, viewing through the narrow opening.
The Staff Bearer of Salt Tribe stopped at the inner Entrance Passage of the Men’s Circle and called out to her son, “Killer of Lion! Attend the mother of your birth!”
Warrior Woman’s leaves and flowers stirred in shock. It was a command of a mother to a son, such as was given to a child who had not yet gone to the Hunters Circle, but still suckled from the breast or toddled along behind. Such a demand was an insult. Such an insult was the first step to the disunion of mother and child.
The leader of the Salt Tribe waited at the entrance passage to the men’s ceremonial circle, a passage which was long and straight, symbolizing the man’s part of mating. There were tears upon her face. Sheknewshe was causing a great pain. Warrior Woman did not interfere. She slammed her staff upon the frozen ground three times and called out, “Warrior Woman of Blood and Battle is witness!”
Two of the men attending outside the Men’s Circle slammed their staff ends upon the ground three times and called out their witness. They joined her near the outer entrance, though inside the circle, one to either side.
Time passed. Deeper darkness fell. Wind blustered from the northwest, cold, and clouds in the sky covered the stars and the moon. Three men crawled from the Hunter’s Entrance Passage and stood to the right. They were armed and tattooed and painted with the pigments of war. Killer of Lion stood upright at the doorway, meeting the eyes of his once mate, before he strode to his mother. He had dressed in his regalia, with feathers piercing his long pointed ears and a slender bone through the hole in his nose. And he had taken time to mark his blind eye, a black streak of ash and fat across his face from brow to jaw.
Staff Bearer of Salt Tribe opened her hand and took a breath. He barely closed his eyes before she blew a palmful of chalk at him. It hit him in the face. He blinked it away from his eyes and focused on the woman who birthed him.
“You have asked a foolish thing of the Old Mother of Winter Trees. The tribe of your birth shall not bear the cost,” she said. “You seek what is not yours to seek. You are disowned. Your curse shall not fall upon me or upon mine. It shall not fall upon your tribe, nor your sisters nor your daughters. If the night devourers your root and it lays limp in your hand, the fault of it will not rest upon the woman who birthed you, nor will it touch the Salt Tribe. It will rest on your brow and be yours alone.”
“Should the curse fall upon me, my mother, I accept its weight. I have seven healthy daughters with three mothers, two of them part of Salt Tribe. They are yours. If my root fails me, I shall pass the Staff of Speaker to another. My news is urgent, as urgent as that of the Mother’s. It should not have waited for you to come. My Vision Quest Moon was . . .” he stopped. Slashed his hand across the air between them. “Your message has been delivered. I am no longer your son. The daughter born by the woman now called Warrior Woman, shall remain with the tribe of her mother. My future daughters will not dwell in Salt Tribe.”
His mother gave a single jut of her chin. “So it shall be.” Staff Bearer of Salt Tribe turned away from her son. Her head was high, but her face was drawn down with grief and fear.
Warrior Woman leaped back to give her passage, back into the land of the women. She met her former mate’s eyes.What had he asked of his mother, of his tribe?
Killer of Lion held her gaze and his eyes were rimmed with tears that pooled in the white chalk. “I will speak to Old Mother now,” he said. “Tell the Old Mother of the Womb Circle that I await her attendance.” He walked to her, where she stood to the side of the entrance wall. Softer, he added, for her alone,“Should my root fail, I will not lay claim upon you to care for me.”
The heart of Warrior Woman of Blood and Battle clenched in her chest. He still loved her. His vow protected her from what he saw as onerous duty. She took three breaths before she calmed enough to say, “No. When I take my hunter’s vows, I will care for my Speaker, who was once my mate, should evil befall him. Come. You must bathe away the dust of the curse of the Salt Tribe before you enter and leave the Womb Passage. Before you are born again.”
???
“You honor me,” he said, his tone saying much more.
Warrior Woman set the single torch in the crevice created by three smaller stones that were used as holders, pulled her battle ax, and knelt on a rock that extended over the springhead’s pool. Her toes, knees, and one hand were stable on the flat stone, even with the ice coating it. “Yes,” she said, gently. “I honor you.”
She reared back and slashed the stone ax down onto the ice, grunting with effort as the surface shattered. For this task, she had bound her breasts against the milk and the cold, but the movement and the recoil of the ax brought back the pain of the first few days. It brought home her decision, and the warnings of great danger she had felt from the Earth and from her tree.
She reared back again and hit the ice. And again. The crack she had made widened and broke through to the water beneath. The pool she had chosen was where the women came to bathe after their winter moon cycles; when the earth warmed with spring, the ice cleared here first, and even in winter, the ice was thin here, for reasons only the Earth knew.
The location was private and the pool beneath was deep. And yes, to be brought here was an honor. Only a few men had ever been privileged to see this place. Fewer still had received the honor of being allowed to bathe here. Quickly, she widened the hole, tossing chunks of ice onto the shore. When it was wide enough to allow the Speaker to immerse himself with safety, she placed her staff across the hole and stepped back. “You will wash both hands first. Then hold onto the staff and step into the hole and beneath the surface of the water until it is over your head. Hold your breath. The Water of the Earth will steal it and your strength if she can. I, she who has named herself Warrior Woman of Blood and Battle, will watch over you and draw you out should your strength fail.”
“You have always been a Warrior Woman,” he said softly. “When you claimed the name in truth and painted your breasts, my spirit departed from me. Should the Holy Water of the Earth claim me tonight, I could not grieve more.”
She raised her face to him in shock. His good eye was hidden in the darkness, his white eye glowing in the torchlight. The edge of his jaw was strong and hard beneath his long, viny beard. His scent came to her on the air, man and smoke and the blood of the hunt. She said, “I will not let the Waters of the Earth take you under, Killer of Lion.”
The faint light caught his scarred face as he smiled, revealing a broken tooth from a recent battle. Quickly, he dropped his furs and stripped his garments from his shoulders. He removed the winter boots she had made for him. Untied his breechclout and placed it within the warm fur. Naked, he stood before her. He knelt and washed his hands, the water splashing, sharp and tinkling. He did not look at her when he spoke. “From the first time I beheld you, you have had my heart, Warrior Woman.”
She struggled to find breath beneath the tears that gathered at the sight of Killer of Lion on his knees on the ice. Flakes of snow landed, sprinkling across his brown back, the very color of the hide he used as a breechclout. His arms were strong and his thighs lean, his chest and back muscled and tattooed with both the Hunt and the Visions of the Speaker. He was not a tall man, nor beautiful to look upon to most, but he was fast when he chased after prey, and wise in the ways of the hunt and in battle. Tears dripped down her cheeks, hot where they trailed on her skin until the cold air stole the warmth and left her flesh icy. “And you mine, Killer of Lion. My heart is yours for as long as I might live.”
