Crossroads and Other Tales of Valdemar

When I had been a Herald, I could sense the tenor of emotion in the towns and villages I passed through. It required no Mind Gift to do so, Shavanne had assured me, only experience and plain common sense. As a tinker, I had not noticed such things any longer, and came to the conclusion that I had felt it before because everyone had been focused upon one thing: me. And I did not feel it later, since no one pays any attention to a wandering craftsman, or if they do, it is in ones and twos, and not everyone in the town at once.

But now once more I felt it, and as if I still wore Whites, I could read the ripples of emotion as easily as a fisherman can read the ripples in a stream.

For Meramay to speak Moonwoman’s name aloud was bad enough. To say what she had done—in fact, to accuse Moonwoman of doing something—was far worse. Even though no one moved from where they stood, I felt their displeasure, and I was not surprised when they began to drift away and move their goods away, until soon Meramay was standing alone.

Even Garan felt it. He made graceful apologies to Meramay, saying he had to get his family settled in, but still he left; he had been Sung away nearly five moonturns ago, after all, and the people who had taken him in were all the family he knew.

She gazed at me, eyes wide and hurt and frightened, just beginning to be afraid.

I knew then that we must leave at once, for the sort of sullen anger she had roused was the sort I had seen flare to violence more times than I could count. But she swore she would not leave without Garan; that he would not be taken from her twice.

I mustered every good argument I could think of in vain—that she knew now where he was and that he was safe; that she did not wish to kindle one of the stubborn grudges that might smolder for generations in a small enclave, beginning for a cause as trivial as a misheard greeting; that Garan would return to her when he had gotten a chance to think—but she would not go. Whether because it was impossible for her to leave Midsummer Meeting or because it was impossible for her to leave Garan, I did not know. I dared not press her too hard lest she turn against me and order me from the Meeting; I would not go in any event, and I thought she would need my help soon.

I was more right than I suspected.

The shunning of Meramay that had begun when she had spoken those fatal words grew like the lake ripples from a thrown stone, until her face was as grim as my own. No one wished her assistance at their cookstove, nor to add the dishes she had prepared to their communal table. But she was proud and stubborn, and still she would not leave. We sat alone together, I making my whole meal of the eggs and vegetable pies that were to have been her contribution to the feast, and Meramay too miserable to eat at all.

I had expected the dancing to resume after supper, though the trading and bargaining over knives and axheads, cloth and livestock, was over for the day. But instead of pipes and drums and fiddles, as the sun set over the valley and twilight filled it, the only sound I heard was that of a lone and distant gittern.

In my home village we play the twelve-string gittern only, though the six-string is the more common instrument in most of the kingdom, for it is easier to learn, and to play well. I recognized the faint silvery ringing of the doublestringed gittern long before I saw the singer.

She came walking down the valley, glowing like the full moon itself in the twilight, and if you had never seen a Companion, you would surely think that the hair that fell loose and rippling to her waist was as white as its coat.

And I thought I must know what she was, or half of it.

When I was a student at Haven, a child was brought to the Healer’s College for treatment. Young Jaxon’s skin and hair were as white as Moonwoman’s, and the bright light hurt his eyes terribly. I had seen the boy arrive, and asked the Healers what might be wrong with him. Master Tiedor told me that like some animals, the boy had been born without color in his skin or hair, and none of the healing arts could cure that, or lend strength to his eyes. In animals, Healer Tiedor told me, the uncolored state does not cause weak eyes, but humans who are so afflicted cannot see in bright sunlight at all.

The Healers were able to help, with tinted lenses for Jaxon’s eyes, lotion for his skin to heal the effects of the sun, and calm matter-of-fact advice to his parents. Though his parents had been hoping for a cure when they came to Haven, this was no disease, just a different way of being born, and to change it was beyond a Healer’s skill.

So must it be with Moonwoman.

The people all turned toward her like flowers to the sun, and I felt a strong prickle of warning, though as yet she had done nothing but pick out a tune upon the gittern, a lullay I had heard many of the women sing here. It is written in a minor key, filled with sadness and longing, like so many of the old songs.