nip of brandy, she laughed and sang while I played my flute. I thought it was the finest music I had ever heard, and wished that we might have the chance again to make more.
The next day dawned bright and clear with the music of a million birds filling the forest. We traveled down the road through some of the most beautiful country I had ever seen. The hills were on fire with a deep and pure green, and glowed like huge emeralds; the sun was a golden crown melting over them. Wildflowers grew everywhere along the side of the road. With spring renewing the land, every tree was in leaf, and every leaf seemed to reflect the light of every other so that the whole forest shimmered with a perfect radiance.
Everything about the world that day touched me with astonishment at its perfection.
It pleased me to see the squirrels scurrying after new shoots, and the sweetness of the buttercups and daisies filled my lungs with every breath. But I took my greatest joy from Atara for she seemed the greatest of the world's creations. As we passed down the road toward Tria, I found myself looking at her whenever I could. At times she rode ahead of me with Maram, and I listened to them talking spiritedly. When Atara laughed at one of Maram's rude jokes, my ears couldn't seem to get enough of the sound. My eyes drank in the sight of her long, browned arms and her flowing yellow hair, and were unquenchably thirsty for more. I marveled at even her hands for they were graceful and finely made, with long, tapering fingers – not at all the hands of a warrior The image of her whole being seemed to burn itself into me: straight proud, laughing, wise and allied with all the forces of life, a woman as a woman was born to be.
On the next day of our journey, we left the hills behind us, and the forest grew flatter.
With nothing but wild land empty of human beings before us, we all began to relax a little. Around mid- morning, I found myself riding beside Maram while Atara and Master luwain went on ahead us some thirty yards. Atara was telling Master Juwain of the Sarni's greatest stories and feats, which he was furiously scribbling down in his journal as he rode. I couldn't keep myself from admiring Atara's poise in the saddle, the way that the play of her hip and leg muscles seemed to guide Tanar effortlessly along. And Maram couldn't keep himself from noticing my absorption – and commenting upon it.
'You're in love, my friend,' he quietly said to me. 'At last, in love.'
His words caught me completely by surprise. The truth often does. It is astonishing how we can deny such things even when it is in our eyes and hearts. 'You think I'm in love?' I said stupidly. 'With Atara?'
'No, with your pack horse, whom you've been watching all morning.' He shook his head at my doltishness.
'But I thought it was you who loved her.'
'But what made you think that?'
'Well, she's a woman, isn't she?'
'Ah, a woman she is. And I'm a man. So what? A stallion smells a mare in heat, and it's inevitable that the inevitable will happen. But love, Val?'
'Well, she's a beautiful woman.'
'Beautiful, yes. So is a star. Can you touch one? Can you wrap your arms around such a cold fire and clasp it to your heart?'
'I don't know,' I said. 'If you can't why should you think I cant?'
'Because you're different from me,' he said simply. 'You were born to worship such impossible lights.'
He went on to say that the very feature I loved most about Atara unnerved him completely. 'The truth is, my friend, I can't bear looking at her damn eyes. Too blue, too bright – a woman's eyes should flow into mine like coffee, not dazzle me like diamonds.'
I looked down at the two diamonds of my knight's ring but couldn't find anything to say.
She loves you, you know,' he suddenly told me.
'Did she say that?'
'Ah, no, not exactly. In fact, she denied it. But that's like denying the sun.'
'You see,' I said. 'She couldn't possibly love me. No one could love another so soon.'
'You think not? When you were born, did you need more than a moment to love the world?'
'That's different,' i said.
'No, my friend, it's not. Love is. Sometimes I think it's the only thing in the world that really is. And when a man and a woman meet, either they open themselves to this heavenly fire, or they do not.'
Again I looked at the stones of my ring shining in the bright morning light like two stars.
'Aren't you aware of the way Atara listens to you when you speak of even little things?' Maram asked. 'When you walk into a clearing, don't you see the way her eyes light up as if you were the sun?' 'No, no,' I murmured, 'it's not possible.'
'It is possible, damn it! She told me she was drawn to your kindness and that wild thing in your heart you always try to hide. She was really just saying that she loved you.' 'No, it's not possible,' I said again.
'Listen, my friend, and listen well!' Here Maram grasped my arm as if his fingers might convince me of what his words could not. 'You should tell her that you love her. Then ask her to marry you, before it's too late.'
'You say that?' I couldn't believe what I had heard. 'How many women have you asked to marry you, then?'
'Listen,' he said again. 'I may spend the rest of my life looking for the woman who was meant for me. But you, by rare good chance and the grace of the One – you've found the woman who was meant for you.' We made camp that night off the side of the road in a little clearing where a great oak had fallen. A stream ran through the forest only fifty yards from our site; it was a place of good air and the clean scents of ferns and mosses. Maram and Master Juwain drifted off to sleep early while I insisted on staying awake to make the night's first watch, la truth, with all that Maram had said to me, I could hardly sleep. I was sitting on a flat rock by the fire and looking out at the stars when Atara came over and sat beside me. 'You should sleep, too,' I told her. 'The nights are growing shorter.' Atara smiled as she shook her head at me. In her hands she held a couple of stones and a length of wood, which she intended to- shape into a new arrow, 'I promised myself I'd finish this,' she said. We spoke for a while of the Sarni's deadly war arrows which could pierce armor and their great bows made of layers of horn and sinew laminated to a wooden frame.
Atara talked of life on the Wendrush and its harsh, unforgiving ways. She told me about the harsh, unforgiving Sajagax, the great war chief of the Kurmak. But of her father, she said little. I gathered only that he disapproved of her decision to enter the Mansiayer Society.
'For a man to see his daughter take up arms,' I said, 'must come as a great shock.'
'Hmmph,' she said. 'A warrior who has seen many die in battle shouldn't complain about such shocks.'
'Are you speaking of me or your father?'
'I'm speaking of men,' she said. 'They claim they are brave and then almost faint at the sight of a woman with a bow in bet hands or bleeding a little blood.'
'That's true,' I said, smiling. 'For me to see my mother or grandmother wounded would be almost unbearable.'
Atara's tone softened as she looked at me and said, 'You love them very much, don't you?'
'Yes, very much.'
'Then you must be glad,' she said, 'that you Valari forbid women to become warriors.'
'No, you don't understand,' I told her. 'We don't forbid women this. It's just the opposite: all our women are warriors.'
I went on to say that the first Valari were meant to be warriors of the spirit only. But in an imperfect world, we Valari men had had to learn the arts of war in order to preserve our purity of purpose, which we saw as being realized in women. It was only the Valari women, I said, who had the freedom to embody our highest aspirations. Where men were caught up with the mechanisms of death, the women might further the glories of life. It was upon women to approach all the things of life
– growing food, healing, birthing, raising children – with a warrior's passion and devotion to flowingness, flawlessness and fearlessness.
'Women,' I said, 'are the source of life are they not? And thus it is taught that they are a perfect manifestation of the One'
And thus, I said, among the Valari, it was also taught that women might more easily find serenity and joy in the One. Women were seen It more easily mastering the meditative arts, and were very often the instructors of men. Of the three things a Valari warrior is taught – to tell the truth; to wield a sword; to abide in the One – his
