Child of Flame (Crown of Stars #4)

“But I didn’t see Alain again. When I woke from my trance, I was in Shu-Sha’s palace, where Laoina and the others had carried me. Alain had gone with three of the men of Shu-Sha’s tribe, back to get the dogs. He never came. I waited there for five days, but he never came.”

Wind breathed through the chimes hanging around the outside eaves. A cow lowed from a nearby byre. If she stopped now, she would fall into pieces and never be able to go on.

“Tell me about Shu-Sha,” said Weiwara, as though she had seen into Adica’s heart. “What is her palace like? Do the people of her land look the same as we do? What do they eat?”

“Queen Shuashaana is powerfully fat. You’ve never seen a woman with so much power in her body, thighs as big as my hips and arms as big as my thighs. Her belly is as large as a cauldron and her breasts are like melons.”

“She must be very powerful,” whispered Weiwara in awe. “I wasn’t even nearly that fat when I was pregnant with the twins.”

So drowned had Adica been in her own fears and sorrows that she hadn’t thought once to ask of doings in the village. So much might have happened since she was gone, and yet she had to be careful how she asked, never to mention any person by name who might thereby become vulnerable to the darts of the evil spirits listening around her.

“I hope the Fat One’s favor still smiles on the village.”

“Spring and summer passed swiftly, Hallowed One. There were two raids by the Cursed Ones north of here, at Seven Springs and Four Houses, and some people were killed but the Cursed Ones were driven off. Dorren came from Falling-down to tell us that we must fortify Queens’ Grave. We had work parties from the other villages all summer to build the palisade on the lower embankment, to protect the stone loom. One time just at the autumn equinox a scouting party shot arrows at us, but both palisades were finished by then, so they left when they saw they could do no damage with such small numbers. Still, we’ve sent for war parties from the other White Deer villages, in case they come back. The Fat One has blessed us with three births and no deaths in the moons since you departed. Her favor has been strong over us.”

“May it continue so,” prayed Adica softly. “Forgive me, Weiwara, to speak of fate when the spirits swarm so near to me, but one thing troubles me. Since you are Mother to our people, it falls to me to ask you.”

“I remember our friendship. I will not turn my back on you now.”

Adica sighed, shuddering. “Promise me that you will lay me beside the ancient queens, if you can.”

Adica smelled Weiwara’s tears. “You will be honored among us as if you were one of the queens of the ancient days. I promise you that. No one in this tribe will ever forget you, as long as we have children.”

“Thank you.”

“Is there anything else you would ask of me?”

To think of lying down alone on her old pallet made her think of the queens, asleep under the hill, but she knew she had to sleep, to keep up her strength just as she had to eat. So Shu-Sha had told her. Nothing mattered more now than that the great weaving be completed successfully.

“I will sleep. You must look to the village now, and I will prepare for what is coming.”

Amazingly, once Weiwara had left and she lay down undressed on her pallet, covering herself in furs, she dozed off easily. Weariness ruled her. She slept, and she did not dream.

But the morning dawned cold and ruthless, nor had sleep softened her heart. She rose at dawn and did what she could to air out her bedding. She examined the dried herbs hanging from the rafters, weeding out lavender that had gotten eaten away by a fungus, burning a tuft of thistle too withered to be of use.

Already, at dawn, villagers gathered before her house.

“Hallowed One, the birthing house hasn’t been purified properly.”

“Hallowed One, my daughter got sick after drinking cider, but Agda says it was the berries she had, not the cider. There are still five jars left. Maybe evil spirits got in them, or maybe they’re still good.”

“Hallowed One, is it true that Alain didn’t come back with you? My dog got a thorn in his paw and one of the geese has a torn foot—”

It was a relief to be busy. She dressed, broke her fast with porridge and goat’s milk, and went first to the birthing house. After three new births, it desperately needed purifying; she smelled spirits lingering in the eaves, making it dangerous for the next woman who would enter to give birth here. As she examined the outside of the house, testing how the thatch had weathered the summer, looking for birds’ nests, spiderwebs, and other woven places where spirits might roost, she glanced occasionally back at the village.