Crossroads and Other Tales of Valdemar

I know that sounds foolish. I am sorry. I have no better words for such things.

Isa removed the arrow—her mother is a midwife, and taught her some doctoring—whispering thanks to the Goddess that the point was not barbed. She cleaned the wound and bandaged it. Blood soaked through the white linen, far too fast.

I don’t like to remember this. The coppery smell of the room, my husband’s pained breathing, the unsteady beat of his pulse. I knew I could not lose him.

I knew I could not leave him. Latya argued with me; then she set me to watching over him instead. “But you are to call me the moment you see any change,” she said, and I saw her own care and worry clearly enough.

You seem surprised. I don’t see why. Do you think Holderkin women don’t care for their husbands? If what you tell me is true, perhaps what Latya felt was not what I felt. But she would have mourned Garen’s death, just the same.

For a time I sat by Garen’s side. His eyes were closed, and I called his name, as if that would open them. Then I fell silent, chiding myself for thinking he might wake, just because I bid him to. What man had ever done anything because of a woman’s voice? Instead, I took his hand in mine. I wondered how I would survive the long years ahead, alone.

I thought that: alone. In a thriving Steading, among many men and wives, I would be alone, without this one man. The walls of his bedchamber seemed very near. I thought perhaps I would go mad, indoors, alone all my days. I remembered Jania’s ride, and for the first time, I understood its end. I understood the despair that led Jania to take her own life, and I knew that her fate could be my own. In that moment, there was only one thing I could do.

I sang.

Did you expect otherwise? I had not forgotten Latya’s command. But disobedience could be punished and forgiven—later, when I stood safe beneath the light of day. Even if Garen were meant to die, I could not believe the Goddess wanted my life, too.

I sang Jania’s song, softly at first. I lost myself in wind and rain, in the pounding of hooves. I forgot the ceiling and walls around me.

I did not forget Garen, though. When it came time for Jania to take her life, my voice faltered. I heard again my husband’s ragged breath. I felt his clammy hand in mine. I couldn’t sing of death, not with death so near.

But then Garen squeezed my hand, though he shouldn’t have had the strength for it. “Sing,” he whispered, his voice hoarse and fierce.

So I sang. Not of Jania’s death, but of a second escape: of how she knew she could not remain with her family, dishonored; so instead she retreated to the barren ridges and narrow valleys she loved well, and rode there all her days. A foolish ending, I know; it would not happen that way. But I have sung no other ending since.

My voice rose; I barely noticed. Garen’s grip remained tight—remained strong. I sang the song through again, and again, my voice gaining strength with each repetition.

I did not hear the door open. I knew only that when at last my voice fell silent, you and Latya both stood in the doorway, watching me. I looked down, face hot, avoiding your stares, leaning over my husband instead.

His pulse was strong, his breathing even. He still held my hand.

“You—” Latya began.

“I am sorry,” I said swiftly. “I was tired, and the watch was long—”

“You saved him,” Latya said.

Again you are surprised. Yet Latya is not foolish. She understands what needs understanding. She knows, now, that my song was needful, and she will not forbid me song again. Holderkin women are practical. More practical, perhaps, than those who let white horses decide their fate.

That was disrespectful. I am sorry.

At any rate, you know as well as I what you said next. Your words were strange to me, are strange still.

“I did not realize,” you said, “that there were lifebonds among Holderkin.”

You said you wished to know our story.

I do not know how to tell a story.

Garen’s Voice

Her song saved me. There is no other way to tell it.

I was ready to leave this world. No more, for me, the dizzying pain of broken flesh and lost blood. I wanted the God’s peace. I knew I could face His judgment without shame. The raiders were dead, after all, by my hand and Ari’s and yours. I knew we owed you a debt, and that was an uncomfortable thought—but it was also a matter for others. I was done here.

Until I heard Nara’s song, reminding me what it was to live, to ride beneath the sky. I knew, then, that whatever else was finished, there was something between Nara and me that was not yet done, something new and incomplete, something I was not free to leave. You call it a lifebond—call it what you will. What matters is that, though I am a man, I was not—am not—free.

I held to her song. I held to her. As if she were my only wife, the only woman in all the world.