Precious Wind considered this. She had never thought that there might be someone inimical at the abbey! All in all, it might be wise to wait a few days while things were checked. She said slowly, “Bear’s preoccupation is a troublesome development that none of us foresaw. I suppose I have the authority to tell him he may go on to Tingawa. That might be the best thing to do . . .”
Xulai stood up. “How long ago did you bring me to the castle?”
“Fifteen years ago,” said Precious Wind. “You were almost four then, you are almost twenty now. In Tingawa, eighteen to twenty is the age of puberty. Until today, you looked about . . . seven. It was only an appearance, a glamour. Tingawan women mature more slowly than the women of Norland, so it was not greatly remarked upon . . .”
“Oh, it was remarked upon,” grated Xulai. “Dame Cullen said I was a dwarf. Even the duke never called me daughter!”
Precious Wind did not let herself sympathize, though she felt the sadness. She said imperiously, “Think, Xulai! The appearance of babyhood helped keep you safe, as the princess and her father intended. If the duke had called you daughter, you and he would both be dead by now. Only his pretense kept you alive.”
“Didn’t they know that I had to grow up sometime?” she cried angrily. “What would have happened then?”
“You were supposed to be in Tingawa long before that happened,” snapped Precious Wind. “As was I! No one lied about your being the soul carrier; you really are the soul carrier. Bear and I were to remain with the princess as long as she was alive, and then we were to return with you to Tingawa. The princess lived longer than anyone thought she could. Somehow, she learned or foresaw that you could not get to Tingawa safely, perhaps for a very long time. She told me this years ago, and she also told me she would provide for you another way.”
“What way?” demanded Xulai.
Precious Wind shook her head. “We don’t know. She looked into the future, she said. She didn’t tell us how or why, or, unfortunately, how long it might take. Lately, Oldwife and I, we have supposed she gave you something of herself.”
Still angry, Xulai said, “I honestly do not know what you’re talking about!”
Precious Wind murmured, “On the way here, when you provided that the horses would not run away, when the duchess made a point of seeing you and all she saw was a baby. When you told the horses they were deer, the tree that it hid wildcats . . .”
“You think she did that?”
“No, we think you did that. We think she somehow endowed you with some of her own abilities. Don’t ask me how, because I don’t know. She wouldn’t tell me. Perhaps she couldn’t. It may be simply that you inherited an ability she had that she herself didn’t understand. She did say, however, that it would be safer if no one knew who you really were but Oldwife Gancer and me.”
“Don’t be angry at us,” Oldwife begged.
“I’m not angry at you,” Xulai cried, wiping at the wetness on her face. “I’m just angry! I don’t know who or what I am. I don’t know how much of me is me and how much is someone else. I don’t know if these parts of me will last or vanish overnight. I know everyone was just trying to protect me, but . . . I never called her Mother. Shouldn’t I have at least called her Mother?” Furious tears streamed down her cheeks and dripped from her jaw.
“Did she ever ask you to do anything you didn’t do?” Oldwife asked.
“Yes! No!” Xulai beat at the wall next to her with both fists. “The last thing was hard, I couldn’t do it for a while, but I finally did. I did it the way a seven-year-old child really would have done it, with fear, and delay, and even avoidance. If I’d known how old I really was . . .”
Oldwife cried, “You couldn’t know because you couldn’t act the part! You had to think you were a child! You had to believe it! Oh, they stuffed your brain with all kinds of things, numbers and languages and history, but nothing about . . . being a woman, because you had to think you were a child. So long as you looked very young, people wouldn’t talk about things when they were around you, man-woman kind of things.”
“Oldwife, I heard about all that from the loft in the stables.”
The old woman bit her lip. “Well, she . . . your mother tried! She wanted to keep you safe! If you did everything she asked, then she knew you loved her, and you’ve got to know she loved you! She died to protect you, Xulai. She suffered for years to protect you. And you’ve got to know the duke loved you, because he helped her do it! Not only them, Xulai. Precious Wind has given all those years to protecting you, and so have I. Anything that urgent, anything that terrible and painful, there’s a reason for it. The princess had a reason, be sure of that. If, like they say, she saw the future, she wouldn’t have sacrificed her life, loving Justinian the way she did, if there hadn’t been a reason.”
“But what reason? If I was part of it, shouldn’t she have told me?”
Brow furrowed, eyes squinted, Oldwife considered this.
Precious Wind said carefully, slowly, “I think she felt you would be safer if you didn’t know. Either she knew you would discover it when the time was right, when you really needed to know, or you would be informed in
