Book of Earth

Chapter 4

Chapter 4

“Take it outside and kill it.”

Rinaldo crept quietly beside his sister along the edge of the meadow, the two of them searching for morning prey. His eyes kept straying to Bradamante’s bald head and the swollen lump in back.

“Take it outside and kill it.”

She still wouldn’t tell him what happened, but he could guess. Their mother had hated Bradamante from the very night she was born. Her voice was weak, her eyes hard as she told her husband to take the baby outside and kill it. Then she turned her head away and refused to look at the child again.

Rinaldo saw and heard all of it. He’d been standing in the doorway.

Lord Aymon scooped up the infant and carried her from the house. Rinaldo raced after him, scratching at his arms, shouting at him, begging him, determined to wrench the baby away.

“Now, now,” Aymon said when they were clear of the house. “Settle down, son. I’m just taking your sister to the barn.”

Rinaldo held Bradamante while Aymon heaped hay into a wooden frame. “I thought we’d keep her in here,” Aymon explained. “Until your ma’s better.”

“I heard Mother say to kill her. You’re not, are you?”

“No, no,” Aymon answered. “I could never do that. Your ma’s not well. She doesn’t know what she’s saying.”

Aymon squeezed milk from one of the cows and showed Rinaldo how to feed his sister.

“Dip your little finger in the milk, then let her suck on it. She’ll be fine.”

Rinaldo stayed awake the rest of the night, cradling the baby, afraid to fall asleep and find her gone.

In the morning Aymon brought word that despite her massive bleeding, Aya had lived through the night. “Best keep your sister out here, though. Your ma thinks I ... well, it can be our secret for now, hm?”

The boy nodded.

“I’ll tell her when she’s well again.”

Rinaldo hid with his sister in the dank barn for several weeks, leaving only to secure food from the house. Lord Aymon divided his hours between caring for his wife and working the ever-demanding fields. The five-year-old boy and his infant sister were on their own.

Tired of the barn, Rinaldo devised a way to carry his sister outdoors. He fashioned a sling from one of Aymon’s old shirts and strapped Bradamante to his chest. Then he wandered the estate, letting anyone who asked hold his beautiful new sister.

“How’s your mother?” the peasant women asked.

“Still sick,” he told them, watching carefully to make sure they held Bradamante right.

As the weeks melted into months, the questions became more pointed.

“Still not showing herself?” one of the women asked. “Is she even out of the bed?”

“My sister likes it better if you hold her head up more,” Rinaldo cautioned. “She likes to look around.”

The woman rested Bradamante against her hip. “Now, young one, I think I know how to hold a babe.”

Rinaldo reached for Bradamante. “She doesn’t like that,” he scolded. “We have to go now.”

The woman clucked her tongue as Rinaldo spirited his sister away. But he didn’t care. Bradamante was his responsibility alone, and no one knew her better than he did.

As she grew, he learned what to feed her: a daily portion of milk, a soft mush of corn meal and water, crushed berries, softened pieces of dried meat. Bradamante learned to walk while Rinaldo held her hands. Her first words were the ones Rinaldo taught her. By the time Aya realized she had been deceived, it was too late. Everyone knew she had a daughter, and Rinaldo knew it would always be his responsibility to protect her. The first time Aya struck her, Rinaldo bit his mother’s hand so hard he tasted blood.

“Something happened last night,” Bradamante told him now, bending to gather stones for her sling.

Rinaldo glanced again at sister’s bald head. “I can see that. Does it hurt?”

Bradamante swept her hand over her scalp, pausing to poke gingerly at the lump. “A little. Naldo, listen to me. Last night I saw my future. You and I are going to be warriors.”

Rinaldo halted midstride. “What?”

“I met a woman last night. She showed me my future. She’s going to teach me to be a warrior. Then I can teach you. We can both learn how.”

Rinaldo clasped Bradamante’s shoulder and turned her to face him. “What woman? What are you talking about?”

“Her name is Manat. She said she’s been watching me.”

“What do you mean? Who’s been watching you?”

“Manat. We were in a place called the white house. I was already grown up. Manat said she’s going to teach me everything I need to know so I can be a warrior some day. I asked her if you could come, too, but—”

“What white house? One of the cottages? Is that where you were when I was looking for you last night?”

“No, it was in my dream.” Bradamante shook her head. “Not a dream—a vision.”

Rinaldo relaxed. “Oh, just a dream.”

“No, it was a vision—that’s different. She was real—I swear it.”

Rinaldo draped his arm across his sister’s shoulder. “You had a terrible day yesterday. I’m sorry about that. I’m glad you had a good dream, but you understand that’s all it was.”

Bradamante jerked to a halt and held up her hand. Then she pointed ahead of them.

Rinaldo squinted. “I don’t see it.”

A rabbit bounded ahead of them, searching for deeper cover. Both hunters loaded their slings.

“Go first,” Bradamante offered.

He knew she was only being polite. He had never been the hunter she was. He arced the sling over his head and released the rock. Bradamante waited for it to miss before sending her own stone flying.

“Good!” Rinaldo said. “A perfect hit.”

“Not perfect. Look, he’s still moving.” Bradamante hurried to her fallen prey. Gently she cradled the animal in her hands, then broke its neck with a snap. She laid it back down on the grass and drew her knife.

They worked together skinning the animal and carving its meat away from the bone. Bradamante dug a hole and buried the offal. Rinaldo wrapped the meat in a rag and stored it in his pack.

“Can you get another?” he asked.

“I’ll try.”

Rinaldo crept behind his sister, peering over her shoulder. As often happened, Bradamante made the kill before he even spied the prey.

“How do you do that?” he asked.

Bradamante shrugged. She set to work with her knife. “Listen to me. I’m going to begin my training tonight. I can’t take you with me, but Manat said I can teach you everything she shows me. Then we can both be warriors some day. What do you think?”

“Brad ... listen to me. Something happened to me yesterday, too. I didn’t want to tell you last night. I didn’t think you’d want—you were so tired—”

“Tell me what?”

“A messenger came.”

“From where? From the king?”

“Yes. He came out to talk to Father while I was in the field with him.”

“Is it war?”

“Yes—a small one. Father decided to send Cyrus this time.”

“Cyrus? Well, he’ll be happy to hear that.” Bradamante knew as well as Rinaldo how anxious the young peasant was to serve in the king’s army. “Did you tell him yet?”

“He already knows. He was working the field with us when the messenger came.”

“I thought Father didn’t want to send him. Cyrus is one of his best workers. I thought that’s why he didn’t let him go last time.”

“And he wasn’t going to this time, either. But Cyrus begged hard—you should have seen him. He wore him down. Finally Father said he could go.”

“I’m glad. Cyrus doesn’t belong here. It’s good he’ll have the chance at something better.”

Bradamante finished carving the second rabbit, and handed it to Rinaldo. He stuffed it into his pack.

“I want to talk to you about something,” Rinaldo said.

“All right.” Bradamante wiped her hands on the tall grass, then stretched out on her back and laced her fingers behind her bald head.

“What would you think if I ...” Rinaldo’s eyes drifted to his sister’s head. He paused, momentarily distracted. “Stand up.”

“What? Why?”

“I need to see something.”

Bradamante complied.

“Now turn around. Slowly.”

Bradamante eyed him skeptically. “All right.” She rotated in front of him, arms hanging loosely at her sides.

“Again. Please.”

“Why?”

“Come on, Brad, just do it.”

She turned once more, her bare feet flattening the grass. By the time she faced him again, he was smiling.

“You look like a boy.”

Bradamante looked down at herself. “I do?”

“It’s your hair,” Rinaldo said. “I never thought about cutting it. You should see yourself—you really could fool people now.”

Bradamante sat down again. “But why—”

“I know what to do now,” Rinaldo told her. “I couldn’t think of it last night, but now I know. You can come with me.”

“Come where?”

“The king’s army. Father asked me if I wanted to go yesterday, but I told him to send Cyrus instead.”

“Why? You should have said yes! That was your chance to go!”

“I wasn’t sure how I’d do it—how I’d bring you with me,” he said. “But now I know. You can pretend to be my servant. Lots of soldiers have their own servants, and if we keep your hair short no one will know you’re a girl. What do you think?”

Bradamante smiled. “It’s perfect. Manat can teach me how to fight, and I’ll teach you. We can both join the army and—”

“Brad, stop. I’m talking about something real.”

“So am I. I’m going to be a warrior. I decided last night. Manat said—”

“Fine,” Rinaldo said with a sigh. “We’ll talk about it later. You can think it over. We wouldn’t go right away, but the next time the king sends for a soldier—”

“She’s real,” Bradamante said.

“All right. Maybe she is.”

“She is.”

“Let’s make a fire,” Rinaldo said. “I’m hungry.”

The young monk Astolpho startled awake. His eyes came back to focus on the white walls around him. He stood alone in the corridor. He wiped the sweat from his upper lip.

How long had the vision lasted? Minutes? An hour? He could hear music coming from the sanctuary, so perhaps he had not been away that long. He had been walking to morning worship when suddenly he saw her, hunting in the meadow with her brother. While Astolpho stood rooted where he was and watched and listened, oblivious to all else, the other monks must have streamed around him and continued on their way. They were used to these episodes by now.

Bradamante’s hair—the lack of it—had been a shock. When had she cut it all off? He had seen her last only yesterday morning, and her hair was still intact then, covering her shoulders like a cape.

She looked different now, but not worse. Without her hair, her dark eyes had nowhere to hide. Without her hair, Astolpho could see her whole face and might more easily gauge her moods. And without her hair, he could see the purpling lump on the back of Bradamante’s head. He could easily guess who was responsible for that.

A few times, as Bradamante walked along, Astolpho caught her reaching up out of habit to tuck a strand of hair behind her ear. He studied her face for a reaction. Was she sad about what she’d done? Proud? Resigned to it? For as well as he thought he knew her, he couldn’t say what her emotions were that morning beyond excitement over meeting Manat.

Bradamante had met Manat. What did that mean?

“Visions come from our god,” Astolpho’s master Samual once said. “It is not for us to decide what we see, but only to understand why our god has sent them.”

Astolpho had been having visions of Bradamante for as many of his fourteen years as he could remember, and he still didn’t understand why. He had spent hours of his life watching her, learning her moods, her strengths, her disappointments. He knew her mouth grew small when she was angry, that she always bit down on her lip just before releasing her arrow, that her dark eyes softened when she smiled and her lips twitched when she slept. Why would his god want him to know any of that?

Astolpho had no control over the visions. They came upon him any time, day or night. One moment he would be carrying home grain from the mill or chopping wood for the fire, and the next he would stand immobilized as a scene from Bradamante’s life flashed before him. He dropped baskets of eggs and buckets full of milk. He let his father’s sheep wander away. While Astolpho’s brothers and sisters spent their days in rabid enterprise, Astolpho couldn’t be depended upon to complete even the simplest task.

Their narrow strip of leased land and small herd of sheep were barely enough to support Astolpho’s family in the best of times. When famine struck, Astolpho’s father realized he could no longer support a child who was too confused to work. One frosty morning he brought Astolpho to the doors of the White Temple and left him there. Astolpho was at that moment watching Bradamante fish through a hole she had cut in the ice. He didn’t notice that his father was gone.

If not for Bradamante, Astolpho often thought, he might still be tending sheep and sowing his father’s fields. If not for her, he might have wasted his life and never understood his destiny.

Perhaps that was the purpose of the visions, he thought. But after all this time he was certain of only one thing: that he felt closer to Bradamante than to anyone. Hers was the face he longed to see each day, the voice he wanted to hear. She was the one constant in his life.

She was his best friend, even though she didn’t know he existed.

“Astolpho!” a young girl cried. She hurried down the corridor toward him.

“Don’t run, Rayda.”

The warning came too late. Rayda paused and bent over to cough so violently, flecks of blood stained her hand. Astolpho rushed to her and rubbed her back until the fit passed.

When she could breathe again, Rayda asked, “Did you see her?”

“Yes, but I’m tired right now. Can I tell you later?” He could see she was disappointed. “I’ll tell you tonight. I promise.”

“What was she doing? Just tell me that. Please?”

Astolpho sighed, but he knew he couldn’t resist. Rayda was the one person who relished the details of Bradamante’s life as much as he did.

“I’ll tell you what she was doing,” Astolpho said. “She was eating, so she could grow big and strong.”

“What was she eating?”

Astolpho borrowed details from other visions. “Bread and squash and carrots and turkey, and she drank a whole jug of milk.”

Rayda grinned. “Did she really? Just for breakfast?”

“You should eat, too, so you can grow as strong as she is. Go tell the cooks what you want. They’ll be so happy to see you out of bed they’ll feed you anything you want.”

“Promise you’ll tell me more later?”

“I promise.”

Rayda smiled. She covered her mouth to cough. Then she strolled down the corridor toward the dining chamber, strumming her fingertips along the wall as she went.

What would Rayda think of the stories now? Astolpho wondered. He would have to be careful how much he told her, now that Manat was beginning Bradamante’s training.

The little girl’s heart might not survive the excitement.

That night, Bradamante smoothed her hand down the sleeve of her gray woolen robe. Manat sat in front of the fire, sipping from her mug.

This is real, Bradamante assured herself. All of it is real.

Once again Manat seemed to read her thoughts. “Did you doubt that?”

“No …” A guilty smile escaped. “Well, just for a moment. Naldo kept saying it was a dream.”

“Was your brother here last night to see what you saw? Or to feel what you felt?”

“No.”

“Then perhaps that should be your first lesson. A warrior must learn to trust herself before trusting anyone else. Your instincts will reveal to you much more than another man’s opinion.”

“He wasn’t trying to ... he just wants to make sure I’m careful.”

“Are you careful?”

“Yes.”

“Then we don’t need to talk about this anymore. Come. We have work to do.”

Before crossing the threshold of the white house this time, Bradamante paused. If I go slowly .... She tried to capture and hold that moment when her long gray robe transformed into brown tunic and pants, when her socks disappeared and left her barefoot on the porch, but it happened too quickly. She stepped onto the warm white sand and stretched her toes wide. A moist breeze lilted toward her from the ocean. Bradamante followed Manat down the beach, once more feeling that lightness of heart the place had brought her the night before.

“You have so much to learn,” Manat said, “but first you have to understand what is possible here. Close your eyes. Relax. Feel the wind against your face.”

Smiling, Bradamante closed her eyes and tipped her face to the sun. It was so bright and warm here, so quiet and restful, and the breeze felt so soft against her cheeks—

Bradamante’s head snapped to the side.

Her knees buckled, her arms flailed. She pitched to the ground so suddenly she didn’t have time to brace with her hands. She landed hard on her face.

Bradamante spat sand from her mouth and stared up in bewilderment. Manat loomed over her, fist still balled.

Bradamante rolled to her side and leapt to her feet. She held her hands in front of her, ready to ward off another attack.

“You … you hit me!”

“I did,” Manat answered calmly. “Does it hurt?”