The One Tree

Twenty One: Mother's Child

FINALLY Linden's arm began to hurt. Her blood became acid, a slow dripping of corrosion from her shoulder down along the nerves above her elbow. Her forearm and hand still remained as numb and heavy as dead meat; but now she knew that they would eventually be restored as well. Every sensate inch of her upper arm burned and throbbed with aggrievement.

That pain demanded attention, awareness, like a scourge. Repeatedly her old black mood rolled in like a fog to obscure the landscape of her mind; and repeatedly the hurt whipped it back. You never loved me anyway. When she looked out from her cabin at the gray morning lying fragmented on the choppy seas, her eyes misted and ran as if she were dazzled by sheer frustration. Her right hand lay in her lap. She kneaded it fiercely, constantly, with her left, trying to force some meaning into the inert digits. Ceer! she moaned to herself. The thought of what she had done made her writhe.

She was sitting in her cabin as she had sat ever since Pitchwife had brought her below. His concern had expressed itself in murmurings and weak jests, tentative offers of consolation; but he had not known what to do with her, and so he had left her to herself. Shortly after dawn-a pale dawn, obscured by clouds-he had returned with a tray of food. But she had not spoken to him. She had been too conscious of who it was that served her. Pitchwife, not Cail. The judgment of the Haruchai hung over her as if her crimes were inexpiable.

She understood Cail. He did not know how to forgive. And that was just She also did not know.

The burning spread down into her biceps. Perhaps she should have taken off her clothes and washed them. But Ceer's blood suited her. She deserved it. She could no more have shed that blame than Covenant could have removed his leprosy. Suffering on the rack of his guilt and despair, he had held himself back from her as if he did not merit her concern and she had missed her chance to touch him. One touch might have been enough. The image of him that she had met when she had opened herself to him, rescued him from the affliction of the Elohim, was an internal ache for which she had no medicine and no anodyne-an image as dear and anguished as love. But surely by now Cail had told him about Ceer. And anything he might have felt toward her would be curdled to hate. She did not know how to bear it.

Yet it had to be borne. She had spent too much of her life fleeing. Her ache seemed to expand until it filled the cabin. She would never forget the blood that squeezed rhythmically, fatally, past the pressure of Ceer's fist. She rose to her feet. Her pants scraped her thighs, had already rubbed the skin raw. Her numb hand and elbow dangled from her shoulder as if they had earned extirpation. Stiffly, she moved to the door, opened it, and went out to face her ordeal.

The ascent to the afterdeck was hard for her. She had been more than a day without food. The exertions of the previous night had exhausted her. And Starfare's Gem was not riding steadily. The swells were rough, and the dromond bucked its way through them as if the loss of its midmast had made it erratic. But behind the sounds of wind and sea, she could hear voices slapping against each other in contention. That conflict pulled her toward it like a moth toward flame.

Gusts of wind roiled about her as she stepped out over the storm-sill to the afterdeck. The sun was barely discernible beyond the gray wrack which covered the sea, presaging rain somewhere but not here, not this close to the coast of Bhrathairealm and the Great Desert.

The coast itself was no longer visible. The Giantship was running at an angle northwestward across the froth and chop of the waves; and the canvas gave out muffled retorts, fighting the unreliable winds. Looking around the deck, Linden saw that Pitchwife had indeed been able to repair the side of the vessel and the hole where Foodfendhall had been, making the dromond seaworthy again. He had even contrived to build the starboard remains of the hall into a housing for the galley. Distressed though she was, she felt a pang of untainted gratitude toward the deformed Giant. In his own way, he was a healer.

But no restoration in his power healed the faint unwieldiness of the way Starfare's Gem moved without its midmast.

That Sevinhand had been able to outmanoeuvre the warships of the Bhrathair was astonishing. The Giantship had become like Covenant's right hand, incomplete and imprecise.

Yet Covenant stood angrily near the centre of the afterdeck as if he belonged there, as if he had the right. On one side were the First and Pitchwife; on the other, Brinn and Cail. They had fallen silent as Linden came on deck. Their faces were turned toward her, and she saw in their expressions that she was the subject of their contention.

Covenant's shirt still bore the black hand-smears of hustin blood with which she had stained him in the forecourt of the First Circinate.

Behind her, Honninscrave's voice arose at intervals from the wheeldeck, commanding the Giantship. Because Foodfendhall no longer blocked her view forward, she was able to see that Findail had resumed his place in the prow. But Vain remained standing where his feet had first touched the deck when he had climbed aboard.

Seadreamer was nowhere to be seen. Linden found that she missed him. He might have been willing to take her part.

Stiffly, she advanced. Her face was set and hard because she feared that she was going to weep. The wind fluttered her long-unwashed hair against her cheeks. Under other circumstances, she would have loathed that dirt. She had a doctor's instinct for cleanliness; and a part of her had always taken pride in the sheen of her hair. But now she accepted her grimy appearance in the same spirit that she displayed the dark stains on her thighs. It, too, was just.

Abruptly, Pitchwife began to speak. “Chosen,” he said as if he were feverish, “Covenant Giantfriend has described to us his encounter with Kasreyn of the Gyre. That tale comes well caparisoned with questions, which the Appointed might answer if he chose-or if he were potently persuaded. He perceives some unhermeneuticable peril in-”

Brinn interrupted the Giant flatly. His voice held no inflection, but he wielded it with the efficacy of a whip. “And Cail has spoken to the ur-Lord concerning the death of Ceer. He has related the manner in which you sought Ceer's end.”

An involuntary flush burned Linden's face. Her arm twitched as if she were about to make some request. But her hand hung lifeless at the end of her dead forearm.

“Chosen.” The First's throat was clenched as if words were weapons which she gripped sternly. 'There is no need that you should bear witness to our discord. It is plain to all that you are sorely burdened and weary. Will you not return to your cabin for aliment and slumber?'

Brinn remained still while she spoke. But when she finished, he contradicted her squarely. “There is need. She is the hand of Corruption among us, and she sought Ceer's death when he had taken a mortal wound which should have befallen her.” The dispassion of his tone was as trenchant as sarcasm. “Let her make answer-if she is able.”

“Paugh!” Pitchwife spat. His grotesque features held more ire than Linden had ever seen in him. “You judge in great haste, Haruchai. You heard as all did the words of the Elohim. To Covenant Giantfriend he said, 'She has been silenced as you were silenced at the Elohimfest.' And in taking that affliction upon herself she purchased our lives from the depths of the Sandhold. How then is she blameworthy for her acts?”

Covenant was staring at Linden as if he were deaf to the interchanges around him. But the muscles at the corners of his eyes and mouth reacted to every word, wincing almost imperceptibly. His beard and his hot gaze gave him a strange resemblance to the old man who had once told her to Be true. But his skin had the hue of venom; and beneath the surface lay his leprosy like a definitive conviction or madness, indefeasible and compulsory. He was sure of those things-and of nothing else, either in himself or in her.

Are you not evil?

In a rush of weakness, she wanted to plead with him, beg him to call back those terrible words, although