The Second Blind Son by Amy Harmon

7

BEAMS

The ghost woman Master Ivo had referred to at supper the first night arrived at the temple several days later covered in blood. Keeper Dagmar carried her up from the hillside, and she cowered against him, shielding her face with her hands as they entered the temple. Keeper Dagmar had looked almost as pale as the woman in his arms when he’d strode through the kitchen and into the apothecary.

“Do not be alarmed. She is fine. Just shaken. The blood is from one of the sheep, but she has a scratch on her arm. I’ll patch it up. Please stay seated,” he’d reassured them, leaving the daughters and the keepers with kitchen duties gaping. He’d shut the door firmly behind him, and when the girls saw the ghost woman again, the blood was gone but she was no less terrifying to behold.

She was young and unwrinkled, though her hair was white like that of an old woman. Her skin was equally pale, her eyes only a few shades darker; they reminded Ghisla of rain clouds. Ghisla was almost afraid to look at her, yet when she did, she struggled to look away. The woman was strange and . . . beautiful . . . the way Hod was beautiful. Master Ivo was fascinated by her too; the day she joined the keepers and the daughters for supper the first time, he’d drawn close to her and peered into her eyes like a thieving magpie. She’d met his gaze steadily, though her white hands twisted nervously in her robes.

“Your eyes are like glass,” he pronounced. “A man will look at you and see himself. His beauty—or lack thereof—will stare him in the face.”

Ghisla composed a tune in her head so she could show the ghost woman to Hod if she ever got the chance. The rune had already healed on her palm. The lines were fainter now, though they were also thicker and slightly raised. Each day she stored up images with corresponding melodies to sing to him . . . someday. If she ever dare try.

Ghost woman, white as snow, pale as ice from head to toe. From whence she comes I do not know, ghost woman, white as snow.

The ghost woman—Keeper Dagmar just called her Ghost—was perhaps a decade older than Ghisla, not old enough to be her mother, though that was the role she seemed expected to fill for all the girls. Dagmar said she was a shepherdess, and she’d come from the fields to help with the temple’s “new flock.”

The keepers emptied a room of relics and replaced the ancient artifacts with a row of beds. A small chest was set at the end of each bed, a place to store their possessions, though none of them had much. Ghisla had nothing but the rune on her hand and the green dress she’d worn the day she’d arrived. Though Ghost was not a child, they put her bed in the same room, at the end of the row, and provided her with an extra chest.

Then the keepers cut their hair. Every curl, every lock of red, gold, brown, and black was snipped away. The keeper in charge of the clipping took pity on them and, after consulting with the Highest Keeper, decided to leave them with close-cropped caps instead of stubble. Ghost submitted to the shearing alongside them, her heavy white hair covering the rest like a blanket of snow. Somehow, her loss just made theirs worse.

“At least we are not bald,” Elayne said, though she’d cried as her hair fell around her feet.

“At least we do not look like keepers,” Juliah agreed. She picked up her warrior’s braid from the floor and refused to relinquish it. “I want it. It’s mine. I will keep it in my chest,” she demanded.

“We don’t look like them . . . but we do not look like us either,” Ghisla responded, grim. Ghost and the four other girls all looked at her, surprised she’d spoken up at all. She’d answered questions when they were directed to her, but never with more than a word or two.

They were measured for the purple robes as well as white dresses that gathered at their necks and at their wrists, to be worn beneath them any time they left the temple itself, even if it was just to walk in the square or on the temple grounds. The king’s guard and the castle staff lived on the mount as well, and a distinction was clearly made: they were never to walk by themselves, even if they were all together.

“It is for your safety. All who see you must be able to immediately identify that you are a daughter of the temple,” Keeper Dagmar explained. More often than not, he was in charge of their instruction. Apparently, he was the only keeper who had any experience with children; he had raised his nephew until King Banruud had assigned the Temple Boy to guard the princess.

Each girl was fitted for two sets of underthings, a shift for sleeping, and two smocks for daily wear fashioned from the drabbest gray Ghisla had ever seen. A woman from the village was brought in to sew for the daughters, though she wasn’t allowed into the temple itself; she had to set up shop in the courtyard with her cart, pulled by a little burro as fat as he was tall.

The temple and the king’s castle faced off across a large, cobbled square on the north end of the mount, but walls separated the king’s grounds from those of the keepers. The king’s grounds were vast, and they included stables and fields and barracks for his guard and a yard for training and sport. Beyond the king’s grounds, the mount extended for a misshapen mile. During the Tournament of the King, which the keepers said happened after every harvest, that mile would be filled with tents of every color, and competition would abound for days.

On the east side of the mount, behind the temple, were corrals and gardens and outbuildings used exclusively by the keepers and walled off from the rest of the grounds. The keepers’ grounds weren’t nearly as vast as the king’s, but the keepers made good use of what was theirs. They had a variety of skills and trades among them, and they did not spend all their time studying runes, reading scrolls, and pleading with the gods. Everyone had a duty—or several—and everyone contributed, though some more than others. It was a village of sorts, made up of bald men and strict rules, but Ghisla found she did not mind their severity. After long months of chaos and uncertainty, the order of the temple was a reprieve, even if it wasn’t a relief.

The keepers weren’t unkind, but they were awkward and aloof and often irritated by the new disruption. None of them had been fathers. None of them were comfortable with women—of any age—and they avoided the girls whenever possible, with bowed heads and skittering eyes. They avoided Ghost too. All except Dagmar and Master Ivo.

It was the Highest Keeper who insisted the girls be treated like little keepers—supplicants, he called them. They were instructed in reading and writing, and they were learning the songs and the incantations.

He reminded Ghisla of Arwin, Hod’s teacher. Maybe it was their age or their stooped backs. Maybe it was the hook of the Highest Keeper’s nose or the bright knowing in his eyes. Or maybe it was simply the way they both made her feel. Caught. Exposed. Unable to hide anything. Not her feelings, not her voice, not her loneliness or her aloneness.

“He is very ugly,” Bashti said, mocking his bent carriage and his birdlike mannerisms.

“That is why I trust him,” Ghost said. “I learned long ago the physical form is simply a shell for all manner of evil. Master Ivo looks evil. But he isn’t.”

“The king is very handsome,” Elayne said, and her point was abundantly clear.

Master Ivo looked like a great, hunched vulture with talons and a beak of flesh. His black eyes and lips weren’t as alarming as they might have been had Dagmar not explained their significance. He gathered them together about a week after their arrival, on their first full day as “supplicants,” and answered as many questions as they had. Ghost sat with them too, though she knew far more than the daughters. It seemed that her questions had already been asked and answered.

“What is a supplicant?” Bashti asked. Elayne and Juliah seemed to know, but Ghisla was grateful for the direct question.

“Supplicants come from every clan,” Dagmar began, “but they must have the support of their chieftain, and the Highest Keeper must grant them entry. Supplicants—most of them—eventually become keepers after their training.”

“Will we be trained in all things?” Juliah asked, her eyes sharpening.

“You will be trained to read and write. You will learn history. You will learn philosophy. You will learn the language and the stories of the gods—not just the gods of Saylok but of many cultures and people, if only to better understand your own.”

Ghisla wondered if they would be instructed in the ways of the Songrs, but she said nothing.

“Will we learn to joust and fence? Will we learn to fight?” Juliah asked.

Dagmar pursed his lips, contemplating that for a moment. “Yes. I suppose you will. Master Ivo said you should be treated like supplicants. All keepers are taught the basics of defense. So you will learn those things as well.”

“Will we start today?” Juliah asked.

Dagmar smiled. “Soon. We will start soon. Mayhaps Bayr can teach you.”

“You told me about the runes. You must tell them too, Dagmar,” Ghost insisted, gently changing the subject.

“The runes are the language of the gods,” Dagmar replied.

The mere mention of runes had five sets of eyes widening.

“But the runes are forbidden,” Elayne whispered. She’d been raised in Saylok and seemed to have a grasp on things most of the other girls did not.

“You are supplicants now,” Dagmar said. “But we will go slowly. Very slowly.”

“But . . . don’t you have to have rune blood to power the runes?” Elayne persisted, chewing on her lip. “What if we do not have rune blood? How will I—how will we—be keepers, then?”

“All who have rune blood do not become keepers. And all supplicants do not become keepers either. There are other paths . . . other worthy pursuits,” Dagmar said.

“All the runes must be drawn in blood?” Ghisla said, her thoughts on the rune on her hand, the rune she had yet to use, though she thought of Hod every day.

“Yes. It is the blood that gives the rune its power.”

“So if someone does not have . . . rune blood . . . the rune itself will have no power?” she asked. Hod had told Arwin she had rune blood.

Dagmar nodded.

“So why guard the runes if they are of no use to powerless people?” Ghost asked, pulling Dagmar’s attention in yet another direction. There was too much to know, too much to learn.

“It is not the powerless people we must worry about. Just because a man or woman has rune blood does not mean they have a pure heart. Power tends to corrupt.”

“Does it corrupt . . . keepers?” Elayne asked. That was the question, after all. If keepers were no better than the clansmen, none of them were safe.

“Of course. Keepers are just men. But that is why we live here, without riches or reward, without the temptations that would make us susceptible to such corruption. It is a delicate balance. We don’t use the runes for power or dominion. We do not use them for gain or glory. We seek wisdom, understanding, and patience.”

“Bayr has rune blood. That is why . . . he is so strong,” Ghost said, and her eyes met Dagmar’s as if they shared a secret. The people in the temple were full of secrets. Ghisla didn’t trust any of them, but she listened to the conversation intently. Talk of the runes reminded her of Hod and crazy Arwin.

“Will Bayr become a keeper—or a supplicant—someday?” Bashti asked.

“He is a warrior!” Juliah scoffed, as though the idea of the Temple Boy wasting his strength was laughable. “Warriors do not become keepers. They fight. That is what I want to do.”

“Do girls have rune blood?” Elayne asked, still worrying her lip between her teeth.

“Of course. My sister . . . Bayr’s mother, had rune blood. There are many women who do.”

“So why aren’t there any keepers who are girls?” Juliah asked.

“Women are keepers of a different sort.”

“What do you mean?” Juliah frowned.

“Women are keepers of children. Keepers of the clans.” Ghost spoke again, like she was repeating something she’d heard.

Dagmar nodded. “Through the ages, women have been needed elsewhere. We men were more expendable. We are still more expendable.”

“What is expendable?” Dalys asked. At six, much of the conversation flowed over her head, but they were all beginners. None of them knew how to read. None of them knew how to write. So they would all be taught together, regardless of the difference in their ages.

“Expendable means not as . . . precious.”

“What is precious?” Dalys asked.

Dagmar smiled but Juliah groaned, impatient to ask her own questions.

“Precious means there are very few. Precious means special. You are all . . . precious.”

“Why did we have to cut our hair?” Elayne asked softly. Of everyone, she had not recovered from that loss.

“We shave our heads to show we are separate from the world, but we wear robes of the same hue to show we are one with each other,” Dagmar answered her, his eyes compassionate.

“Why do you put black around your eyes?” Juliah asked.

“It is symbolic.”

“Of what?”

“Of our own . . . lack of vision and understanding.”

“Master Ivo blackens his lips as well,” Juliah reminded. “But you don’t. None of the regular keepers do.”

“As the Highest Keeper he has great power, more power than any other man, but next to the gods and the Norns he is nothing. He is flesh. He is subject to fate and death and evil. So he blackens his lips to show his words are not the words of a god. He blackens his eyes to signify his sight is not omniscient.”

“What is aw-awm-ni-shunt?” Dalys asked, struggling over the word, and Dagmar stood, clasping his hands, signaling an end to the inquisition.

“It means all-knowing. None of us are all-knowing. Not the Highest Keeper. Certainly not me. There will be time for more questions tomorrow, and the day after that. For now, let us just try to get through the next few hours.”

Master Ivo slowly began including them in keeper life, molding the pattern of their days into a likeness of the brotherhood. They had their own quarters, and they played more and prayed less than the keepers. They did not go into the sanctum but were schooled in their own hall, often by a rotating gaggle of grumpy keepers who took turns instructing them in various dry subjects in unvaried, dry tones. Keeper Dagmar was their favorite, and he seemed to enjoy teaching them too, though Ghisla caught him watching Ghost sometimes, a peculiar expression on his face. It looked like fear and fondness, an odd combination. Mayhaps it was fear of fondness, which Ghisla understood. It was better to not get too attached; she’d learned that lesson well.

Ghost was their constant companion and caretaker. She slept in their room and ate at their table and sat through all their lessons. Ghisla was surprised to learn that she did not know how to read either. Nor did she know how to make or use runes, and no one—save mayhaps Dagmar and Master Ivo—knew her story or how she’d ended up on Temple Hill living among the keepers. She was as quiet about her past as they all were and offered only the barest of histories.

“I was left in the woods as a babe,” she said. “An old woman found me. She was almost blind and didn’t realize I looked as I do. She was lonely, and her children were all grown. I stayed with her until I was five. When she died, her son made me a servant in his house. I’ve been in many houses since then . . . but I’ve never lived in a temple.”

They’d all been afraid of her at first, especially when she darkened the area around her eyes like the keepers did. Ghisla suspected she was trying to be one of them, to blend in, but it just made her all the more terrifying to behold.

But little by little, the daughters relaxed around her, and she around them. The little girls clung to her, especially at bedtime. They moved their beds closer to hers and followed her like little ducklings.

Ghisla kept her bed where it was. She slept on the end nearest the door. Each night she planned to use it, to creep out into the temple to a hiding place, where she could muster her courage and summon Hod. But each night she lay silently, listening to the others sleep, too afraid to try.

No one spoke of their lives before, and Ghisla was not the only one who seemed unaccustomed to answering to her name. Poor Dalys answered to everything. Elayne was of Ebba—a true daughter of Saylok. Juliah was too, though her father was a marauding Hound. Bashti was not a Bernian name, though it began with the sound of the clan. Sometimes in her sleep, she chanted in a language Ghisla didn’t understand. Mayhaps they were the songs of her people, the songs of the people who’d loved her once, a lifetime ago. Like Ghisla and the Songrs. But they did not speak of their lives before.

Two months after Ghisla and the other clan daughters were brought to the temple, the Temple Boy and Princess Alba came for a visit. Evening meditation had commenced, the bells had tolled, and everyone had retired to their private quarters for quiet contemplation. It was one of the hardest hours of the day for all of the girls, but especially for Juliah. She could not hold still unless she was readying to pounce and sat on her bed rattling like a pot prepared to boil over. Bashti wasn’t much better, though she considered it her mission to make the others laugh with her grimacing and get them in trouble. Dalys usually fell asleep, Elayne sat in obedient silence, and Ghisla used the time to compose songs in her head that no one would likely ever hear.

When the door to their room opened with a slow screech, the girls looked up from their assigned spaces to see the Temple Boy, with the princess perched on his shoulders, standing on the threshold. The door was tall, but Bayr still raised his hand to protect Alba’s head as they ducked through the frame.

“It is Alb-ba’s b-b-birthday,” he said, as if that was enough to explain their sudden presence. He closed the door behind them. “We w-wanted t-t-to m-m-meet you.”

The girls looked at him with varying expressions of fear and fascination. They’d not been officially introduced, but they’d all seen him pledge his protection in the courtyard the night they arrived, and they knew his story.

Elayne stood and took a step toward him and Alba, assuming the role of hostess. She curtsied deeply and Ghisla and the other girls followed her lead, rising and bobbing their own welcomes.

“Happy birthday, Princess Alba,” she murmured. “I am Elayne . . . of Ebba.” She pointed to Juliah, the next oldest. “This is Juliah from Joran and Liis from Leok.” Ghisla forgot who she was for a moment and failed to do anything but stare rudely, unaware that she had been introduced. Elayne rushed on, as if trying to cover her silence.

“Bashti is from Berne. Little Dalys is about your age, Princess. She’s from Dolphys . . . like you are, Temple Boy. Keeper Dagmar too.”

“He is Bayr,” Alba corrected kindly, patting his cheek from where she was perched. “Not Temple Boy. His name is Bayr.”

“Why have you brought her here?” Juliah asked, peevish. Ghisla suspected her bad humor was jealousy; Bayr had not yet been available for weapons training, though Dagmar kept promising.

“It i-i-is Alb-ba’s b-birth d-day,” Bayr stammered again.

“You said that,” Juliah snapped. Elayne flinched and Bayr stiffened. Slowly he brought Alba down from his shoulders. He touched Alba’s pale hair, as if trying to shield her from Juliah’s unwelcoming behavior.

Alba walked to Juliah and, without hesitation, took the girl’s hands and tipped her head back with a smile. Ghisla had thought her breathtaking by moonlight, but she was even more so in the light of day. Her hair was as pale as corn silk, but her eyes were so brown they appeared black. Sooty lashes brushed her honeyed skin, and her lips were the color of the berries that grew on the bushes near the eastern wall.

“YOU LEE UH!” Alba sang Juliah’s name. “I am here to see you.” And just like that, Juliah wilted.

They stayed an hour, Alba singing and hopping from bed to bed, making the girls smile in spite of themselves. Bayr hung back, watching, listening for prayers to end and the sun to set, and when the bells tolled again to signal meditation was over, he scooped Alba up and bowed to the girls.

“Th-thank y-you,” he stammered.

“Will you bring her back, Bayr?” Dalys asked.

He nodded swiftly, and little Dalys wasn’t the only one who smiled in response.

“I don’t want to go, Bayr. Not yet. I want to stay here, in the temple,” Alba begged.

Bayr patted Alba’s leg, dangling over his shoulder, but he still turned to go. With Alba’s protestations trailing behind them, he whisked her away.

Hod had to put Ghisla’s pictures away. That is how he thought of them; they were Ghisla’s, not his. Ghisla’s eyes, and Ghisla’s memories, all colored with Ghisla’s songs. If he didn’t put them away, tuck them behind a door in his mind, they became his world, and he wanted only to visit them.

They were not his world.

His world was one of sound and silence, one of sense and scents, one of hearing and heeding. And when he looked at Ghisla’s pictures—especially in the beginning—those things fell away. He had begged Arwin to let her stay—who gave a miracle, a gift from the gods, away? But in the part of him that was not heartbroken at the loss, he understood his teacher.

When Ghisla sang, he was useless. Useless to himself. Useless to her.

So he locked her pictures away until he was alone and Arwin thought he was sleeping. Only then did he study the color and the cast. But before long, they began to fade.

The rune on his hand was silent; it only seemed to work one way. He did not have her gift, and the thread between them was not one he could pull. He was afraid for her, the little songbird with the frail bones and bitter words. But beneath his fear for her was despair for himself. For one perfect week, he’d had a friend. A friend, and music and pictures. But she was gone, and she took her songs with her.

For months he waited and listened, hoping. He and Arwin traveled to Leok for supplies, and talk of Liis of Leok had still rippled through the streets. That’s what they called her now. Liis. It was not so different from Ghisla, and he was glad. There was talk of all the Daughters of Freya, the way there had been talk of Princess Alba years ago. In another five years, the Highest Keeper or the king would have to find something—or someone—new to keep the people from losing hope. For now, the daughters were the new gods—Liis of Leok, Juliah of Joran, Elayne of Ebba, Dalys of Dolphys, and Bashti of Berne—and the people raved and prayed as if the girls would save them. Mayhaps they could. Ghisla had saved him for a time.

At least he knew she was alive. That much gave him hope. Arwin did not speak of her, not to Hod, though Hod knew he sought out news in the villages when he thought Hod was out of earshot. If Hod concentrated, he could hear great distances, especially if the speaker had a voice he was accustomed to and the conversation took place out of doors. He could hear a flock of birds a mile away. He’d tested the distance. Crickets and all crawling creatures were quieter, but the more distinct their sound, the farther off he could hear them.

People were the easiest to hear. They did not move with the same stealth or suspicion. They were predators instead of prey, and they stomped and sang and spoke loudly, even when they were alone. He’d grown accustomed to the distortions of the wind and the water, to the way both tossed sound about and muted or amplified it. He could hear a leaf fall—that pleased Arwin immensely—though what good it did him, he wasn’t sure.

But he couldn’t hear Ghisla. And for months he waited, doing his best to forgive his teacher for sending her away, and to forgive himself for not fighting harder for her to stay.