‘Earth they regarded as their treasury, to spend at will, giving no thought for future ages. Women they regarded as though they were grain fields or orchards to be harvested.’
‘Things are not unlike that now in Lakland,’ said Jasmine. ‘I thought it was the way things had always been.’
‘It was what the Sisterhoods were supposed to prevent,’ sighed Terascouros. ‘We have not protected the world as we were told to do by the Thiene. Too many centuries have passed. We have forgotten why we were organized. There are still some thousands of Choirs, all hidden, all self-sufficient to a great degree. If the outer world ends, we can emerge to offer teaching and healing as we have done before. But I think this time the outer world will not end without taking us with it. That nunnery in Lak Island, Jasmine, was once a Sisterhood. I know the place. Yet you know how far into nastiness it has sunk, to take your child, to allow the taking of your child. What difference, after all, between the teaching of those and the teachings of Gahl?’
‘They did not… cut…’
‘Not the flesh, no.’ And after that Terascouros brooded and would not talk about it.
Thewson and Leona went out into the world to fetch the dogs, returning a day later. Leona was not one who talked much, and Thewson often did not talk at all. Still, in the long miles they fell into a kind of shared feeling which allowed them to speak and hear one another. Leona asked, and Thewson told of his spear. ‘This blade is an old, old blade. Perhaps my father’s father’s father carried this blade.’
Leona commented bitterly that they had both been given hand-me-downs. It took some time to explain why hand-me-downs, things which Thewson treasured, were despised by the people of the moors. Finally, Thewson said, ‘Wao’su, Leona. Lamazh sofur fanaluzh. That is a saying of my people. “It may be wisdom to look at ancient things.” See how you wear the old circlet they gave you. It was not new-made for you, but you were new-made for it.’
Leona laughed shortly. ‘So were you new-made for your spear, dear warrior. I will think on your wisdom.’
‘Will you tell me why you become the Umarow, the Great Beast? Is it so with all your people?’
‘Perhaps this power is latent in my people. Perhaps only in some. If the sphinx comes again, I will ask her, for it is a great riddle.’
‘No, Lady. Do not have anything to do with that one. Ask no questions of that one. Better to see the basilisk than to question the sphinx. See how my people dare use the skin of the basilisk to bind our blades to the shaft of the spear. We would not dare use the skin of the riddle-maker so.’
‘I did not see the basilisk. It was dark, and I was blinded by the lights in the tower and wild with the pain of the wounds they had dealt me blindly.’
‘Did you find the sleeper, Jaer, where the Keeper said?’
‘I found long corridors and harsh light and the smoke of burning. I found a place where some in red robes cried endlessly in a great hall. I broke their chains and drew out the nails and saw them scrabble across the floor into a yawning pit which mumbled and munched in the very throat of earth. I found treasuries. I found Jaer in a room at the base of the tower, in a cell which I broke, among others which I killed. There were old women there, sleeping, dreaming. I could smell the drug on them. I remember it, but as though it had been a dream. The gryphon is not afraid, Thewson, never afraid, but it grieves. Strange, to be so huge and so grieved. I wonder what it is the gryphon grieves for?’
Thewson wondered as well. It distressed him for long hours to think of the Great Beast, hunted by the youths of the Lion Courts, killed and skinned, somehow grieving. He shook his spear moodily, did not speak for some time, thought seriously of returning to the south.
However, instead he went with Jasmine to glean in a field newly harvested, taking food with them, and new cider. When the other gleaners had gone, they hiked to the top of a long, east-west ridge to the north of the fields and stood there gazing away to the north and east, from which the threat seemed to come. Thewson was not one to talk much, but Jasmine made up for that.
‘Since I was a tiny child, I have wanted to be like Leona. So tall and queenly, with hair like silver gilt. She walks like a queen, too; she would look well in the embroidered gala clothes we wear in Lak Island. Then I think of her as the gryphon and do not know whether I would be like that or not. Yet when we were on the trail, Thewson, and I watched you two together, I thought that you were like the legendary ones, day and night, light and dark, the king of shadow and the queen of dawn.’
Thewson snorted, a kind of laugh which betokened deep amusement. ‘Leona would not be queen to any king, little one. She is lover of women only, and not often that, I think.’
Jasmine was surprised into silence, then suddenly aware that she had known it all along. ‘Well, that is too bad. I was wondering, you know, what kind of children you two might have. It must be hard for you, Thewson, to find women who are as tall and well built as the women in your own land must be. We here in the north are smaller folk. As my people would say, “As is skimpt seeks
