Califia's Daughters (10 page)

All of which, while Dian's body fervently appreciated it, made her increasingly nervous. She wasn't altogether comfortable being cared for, and she certainly had no intention of becoming dependent on him—she couldn't afford it.

But Isaac stayed just this side of pushy, and demanded little from her. If he'd told her he loved her, she would probably have laughed and afterward seriously considered throwing him out—love was more than she had bargained for. However, he did not tell her; he simply showed her affection, passion, and friendship, and let her get on with her life.

Of the three, she told herself, it was his friendship that she valued the most. The looming problems of what to do with the dogs during her absence simply faded away under the knowledge that Isaac and Teddy would take over, that she would not have to worry about their care under a distracted Judith or an unwilling Laine, because Isaac would care for them. Beyond that, his friendship gave her a sounding board, a place to dump her frustrations and irritations that would not burden the already overladen Judith or prompt well-meaning questions from Ling. His intelligence meant that she could consult him, bring him her problems, and ask his advice, and gradually, without realizing it was happening, she began to give him her trust.

The affection strengthened her, and the wrestling and breathless laughter were glorious, but for his honest, solid friendship she was humbly, profoundly grateful. Her happiness was not all-engulfing: she was constantly aware of Judith's tension, like a minor chord playing in the back of her head night and day, and she continued to worry about Sonja's unpredictable behavior. Even the upcoming trip, which at first she had seized like a child grabbing a present from under the tree, now brought mixed feelings, because she would be leaving Isaac, and she suspected that when she returned it would not be quite the same. There was a bittersweet edge to the weeks, but the sweetness was all the greater against the bitter knowledge of its brevity.

         

Harvest Day dawned, cold and clear and bursting with the essence of autumn. Dian woke to the sound of voices and feet heading toward the cooking pits, but instead of planting her dutiful feet on the cold floorboards, she turned luxuriously over against Isaac's furry bulk. She woke again an hour later to the incredible, tantalizing fragrance of coffee and something sweet and yeasty and toasted. Isaac was just getting back into bed, a cup in one hand and something brown in the other, which he proceeded to dip into the cup and stuff into his mouth.

“What have you got there?” she demanded. “How long have you been up?”

“Oh, hours. I roasted the coffee and made doughnuts. I hope you like them.” He took a large bite and chewed in an extremely self-satisfied manner, scattering crumbs across his luxurious black beard, which was matted on one side from the pillow, and into the curls of chest hair that sprang from the inadequate robe he wore.

“It smells like heaven.”

“Yours is on the table.”

“I must have been sleeping like a rock not to have heard you.” She reached across him for a brown circle and examined it, first with curiosity, and then with suspicion. “Wait a minute.” She sat up and pawed through the plate of doughnuts; they were all either half raw or half burned. “You didn't make these, you liar, Susanna did! Why, you—”

“Watch out! My coffee, don't—”

“You don't deserve any coffee, deceitful man. I suppose you took all the edible ones too.”

“Each one of those is at least half edible. Susanna guaranteed it.”

“So I have only a fifty percent chance of being ill today. Maybe I'll just stick to the coffee.”

“Suit yourself.” Isaac deposited a black section on his plate and reached for another mottled round. He held it up thoughtfully.

“She is talented, that girl. It's not easy to burn just part of a circle of dough in a pan of liquid fat. Takes considerable attention to detail, it does.”

“She is indeed talented. Thank God she wasn't allowed to make the coffee.”

“You don't think she did?”

“Oh, no. This is Lenore's coffee, no mistaking it.”

“You may be right.”

“I'm always right. Hand me that one on top, would you?”

“That one's raw on the other side, try this one. And kindly don't spill your coffee in my ear.”

“Sorry. You know, they're better than they look.”

“My ears?”

“The doughnuts, idiot. So, have you decided yet whether or not to compete today?”

Isaac drained the last vapor of coffee from his cup, sighed regretfully, put the cup on the table, and punched up the pillows behind him. Dian finished her doughnut, leaned across him again with her bony elbow in his stomach to sip her coffee, and on her return cuddled into him and rubbed her face across his chest. He put his arm around her back and looked down at the top of her head with a curious expression of affection and longing and an exasperation that verged on resentment. Dian saw none of this, and when he sighed, she took it as a sound of simple contentment.

“Well?” she said.

“Well what?”

“The competitions. Are you going to compete?”

“Ah, yes, the games. Tell me again the events of the day,” he requested.

“I've told you.”

“Say it again.”

“All right. Breakfast, which we've just had. Then the rest of the morning to lay out the preparations. We do the foot races, followed by lunch. Following that we do the tug-of-wars and the athletic events, then a siesta—”

“Hey, I'll enter that. I'm good at siestas.”

“You'll like the next event too—dinner. After that the kids do something, a skit and recitations usually, and Kirsten says a few words, then there's dancing and enough beer and new wine to make your head pound for a week.”

“I'm exhausted just thinking about it. Actually, I was asking about the competitions themselves.”

“A bit of this and a bit of that. Half a dozen divisions of tug-of-war, the races that go from sack race to a five-miler, then hand-to-hand combat and finally archery.”

“I think Teddy and I are entered in the three-legged race. I'll need another of these, don't you think, to give me energy?”

“Turn to lead in your belly, more likely, but I'll cheer you on and bring a wheelbarrow to the finish line and fetch you back home. Anything else?”

“Teddy's entered in the archery.”

“I didn't know he could shoot,” she said, surprised.

“He's pretty good for his age. Are you competing in anything?”

“The five-mile race. I'm judging the fights. Is there any more coffee?”

“One cup. I'll split it with you. No archery, then?”

“I suppose so. I tried not to enter last year but they made me. I thought they'd like to see someone else place first, but I guess not.”

“Perhaps this year you'll find the competition's improved,” he said mildly, and carefully clawed a blob of raw dough from his mustache.

“In archery? Not likely. Laine's my equal with a rifle, but not a bow.”

“Too bad you can't dig up some of the old flintlock rifles, make your own bullets. Not really appropriate, I guess, doesn't go with the rest of the things. I wonder why you do your competitions on Harvest Day? We always did ours on Midsummer's.”

“I don't know,” she mused into his chest hair. “I never really thought about it. We always have. I should ask Kirsten.”

“Makes sense, in a way. It's all about strength, isn't it? Strong bodies, the strength of the earth in harvest. Your hair smells nice,” he added. “Is there any hurry to be up?”

In answer she pulled the covers up over their shoulders and pressed herself against him. “Apparently there is,” she noted.

“I WILL NOT ENTER THE LISTS AGAINST SUCH A
MAN WITHOUT FIRST SEEING HIM
AND SPEAKING WITH HIM.”

E
IGHT

D
IAN AND
I
SAAC EMERGED EVENTUALLY TO LEND THEIR
hands to the communal effort. Teddy spied Isaac and came shrieking down the hill to snatch him away for the exciting hanging of lamps from the raw rafters of the half-finished Great Hall. Dian continued on to the kitchen, took her turn at the spit and hauling beer kegs, setting up trestle tables and stealing savory bits from under the cooks' noses, then went up to the green to supervise the demarcation of the fight circles and pacing off the archery targets.

At eleven o'clock the foot races got under way. This was one area in which the boys did well, so that five of the eight races were won by boys, including the tightly contested struggle up the final hill from the mill in the five-mile race. Dian was definitely over the hill for the straight slog and came in behind most of the eighteen-to-twenty-year-olds, and a fair number of the younger teenagers as well. Red-faced and panting, she staggered over to where Isaac and Teddy stood and collapsed at their feet. Isaac sneered and walked off, but Teddy dropped to his knees, looking worried.

“Are you okay, Dian?” he asked. She sat up briskly, breath miraculously restored.

“Sure, Teds. But,” she said to Isaac, taking the cup of cider he had actually gone to fetch, “I'm getting old. Twenty-eight's no good for that uphill sprint. Time to change the rules—over a longer distance I'd take them all. Say, ten miles. Down to the new village site and back, that should do it.”

“There's nothing more obnoxious than a bad loser,” Isaac commented primly, and hauled her to her feet. “Come on, it's time to root for your menfolk.”

Susanna's team placed first in the egg race. The wheelbarrow relay was called on account of cheating. Teddy and Isaac came in dead last in the three-legged race.

At midday the bell rang and the entire village, with the exception of the poor souls standing sentry, gathered at the outdoor dining area and helped themselves from heaping trays of bread, great wheels of cheese and slabs of ham, bowls of pickles and preserves and fruit. The big kegs were tapped, a thanksgiving prayer and a toast were given, and the Harvest Day festivities were well and truly under way.

Judith sat on a stool away from the crush, short of breath and sore of back but well content with the two hundred and seventy-odd men, women, and children before her. There had been years when the groaning board was approached with hesitation, when the adults (all too aware of the scant hay in the barn, the previous summer's droughts or untimely rains, or the spring's late freezes) thought twice about filling their plates and satisfied themselves with their children's leftovers. This year, however, the stores were full and, bar disaster (pray God), Planting Day would find them strong.

Lunch hastily swept away, everyone made their way to the green and the length of thick new rope that stretched nearly from one side to the other. To allow the meal to digest before the serious competitions, and to start the afternoon with simple amusement, the tug-of-war was held right after lunch. School classes competed first, then one end of the Valley against the other, and finally all the “women” at one side against the “men” at the other—lacking the formal costumes of neckties and frills that would appear in the evening. Dian took her place among the designated males and found herself but two away from Sonja. The newcomer gave Dian a nod, spat on her hands, and took up the rope.

The “men” won, in a heaving pile of uproarious bodies.

After a pause to refill beer mugs, the white-limed circles took center interest. Dian never entered the fights as a contestant, although before Jeri's “accident” she and Dian had planned a demonstration with the staves. Now, however, Jeri was set to judge, along with the newcomer Jenn, whose injuries still gave her trouble. Dian stood behind the judges for the first few fights and was pleased at the considerable potential of feint and flurry. There was a boy entered this year in the seven-to-ten-year-old level, and Dian watched with an uncomfortable mixture of relief and shame as his heavier opponent pulled her punches a bit and pinned him gently to the ground, as she had been instructed. It had cost Dian much effort to convince the others that boys needed to learn hand combat, and an injured boy at this stage might have meant the end of it; still, the disappointment on his face was hard. She went over to him and hugged him across the shoulders.

“Great job, Tonio. I'm proud of you.” She pretended not to see the quick swipe of an arm across his eyes before he looked up.

“I lost, Dian.”

“Good heavens, that doesn't matter. I hope you're not going to kick yourself for not being a superman against a girl who has ten pounds, two inches, and three years' experience on you? I never won anything until I was a lot older than you.” This was an outright lie, but it did the trick, and after one mild suggestion and two specific compliments on moves he had made well, she sent him away, if not happy then at least encouraged.

The other fights went well. Dian was peripherally aware of Sonja prowling about in the background, watching her as much as the contestants, but the woman did not approach her, not even to demand that she be allowed to enter the ring. Dian was uneasily aware that she would soon have to do something about the chip that rode the woman's shoulder like a familiar spirit—but not today. During the “knife” bouts, with stubby lengths of dowel dipped in ochre that left painted “wounds” on the fighters' skin to help the judges, Sonja watched, still and intent, but she vanished after the last of these. Then came the archery, and Dian was too busy to look for her.

Archery was the foundation stone of the village defenses, and it was assumed that every able body could use a bow in a pinch. The boys threw themselves into it with all their hearts, for it was one of the few activities that was both essential and permitted them, and Dian, amused, fostered the determined rivalry of her twelve young men against the girls. The war between the sexes was far from dead, and knowing that all the really top archers in the Valley were women rankled at the men.

Competition began with the youngest kids, with diminutive bows and the targets barely a stone's throw away. Warily regarded arrows flew wildly—with a couple of exceptions. One of those was Teddy. She went to stand behind him, took in the tight-lipped concentration, his expert position, and the bow three inches longer than anything she would have given him; when the arrow hit just a thumb's breadth from dead center, she raised an eyebrow and looked around for Isaac. He smiled modestly. She stalked up to him.

“Give me your hands,” she demanded.

“My hands are yours,” he said, and held them up. She examined them closely. The left hand was inconclusive, but the right—She ran her thumb over the ends of his fingers and muttered to herself.

“Why didn't I notice these calluses?” and to him, accusingly, “Do you shoot?”

“I've been known to shoot occasionally, yes.”

“Mr. Humility, eh? Do you win competitions?”

“I've been known to win, yes.”

“Right, these boys can use a good model. Find a bow, I'll put you in the adult group.”

“Oh, I don't know, Dian, I'm really out of practice,” he began, and was interrupted by a snort of laughter, quickly stifled, coming from behind them. Dian looked around to see Laine's rapidly retreating back, and when she returned to Isaac, there was a definite twinkle in his black eyes.

“Do I sense a conspiracy here?” she said slowly. His smile broadened, and he winked.

“Look to your laurels, my dear. The competition has improved.”

Sure enough, when the time came to shift the targets back for the adult heat, there was expertise in the way Isaac strung his borrowed bow and great familiarity in the fingers he ran over the arrows. He noticed her watching and grinned a doggy grin; Dian decided then to pay a bit more attention to accuracy than was normally required. Just in case.

He was good. He was, in fact, very good. In the middle distance his scores jockeyed with those of Dian and Laine as they left behind Carmen's eldest daughter Clara and a vastly improved young man named Salvador, who had come in tenth last year. As the distances increased, so did Isaac's scores, possibly, Dian told herself, because of the edge his superior chest muscles gave him. The final scores in the stationary shoot put Isaac at the top, by two points. It was the first time a man had placed first in more than twenty years. The young men looked immensely smug, and the betting on this event, for years the most predictable of all the competitions, heated up.

The moving targets were next. While the course was being cleared, Dian went for a drink. She talked to a few people, drank her cool water, refilled the cup, and took it over to Isaac. His new admirers drifted off, with sideways glances at Dian, and she handed him the cup. He thanked her.

“Sneaky bastard,” she told him under her breath. “Hiding your fingers. I hope you get blisters.” He laughed politely as if she had made him a compliment, and poured the water down his throat.

With his first shot at the wheeled target, the odds offered against him dropped still further. The others held on, and Salvador staged a valiant rally that put him three points up on Clara, but eyes were on the trio of Dian, Laine, and Isaac. Wagers climbed—three cords of split wood, two Meijing silvers, half interest in a pony. The target seemed to pull Isaac's arrows like a magnet, whereas Dian had to work for her bull's-eyes; Laine began to fall behind, point by point, through inexperience and nerves and an unfortunate breath of wind. At the end of the round Isaac, cool, unblistered, and three points ahead, turned to Dian and half-shouted at her over the tumult of a hundred and more adult voices:

“Are you pleased with your competition, then?”

It was all very well and good to provide a thrill for the onlookers, but this was getting serious. To lose to a man, even Isaac, was unthinkable. Dian pushed her way to the trough to wash her face and have another drink, then went back across the green to see to her horse for the third round. There was a crowd gathered under a tree, at the center of which was Jeri, leg in plaster and a slate propped on her other knee.

“What's up?” Dian asked, craning to see the slate.

“Bets,” she said succinctly, and wrote down the name of the woman in front of her, followed by the words
3x4 ft. window.

“Oh. What odds?”

“Three to one.”

“What? You really think Isaac—”

“Oh, no,” Jeri said quickly, and tugged on Dian's arm in order to speak into her ear. “I'm betting on you. I've seen Isaac ride.” She shook her head and took the next wager, and Dian walked off grinning to herself.

Jeri, as it turned out, was one of the few who was totally pleased with the final result of the day. Isaac, indeed, was no horseman, and whereas Dian cantered past the target like a centaur, sinking her arrow cleanly into the bull's-eye all six times, Isaac only made the center once out of three left-hand passes, and on the awkward right-hand tries failed miserably, once nearly missing the edge of the target entirely. Laine caught up with his score on the third pass and surpassed him by the end.

He seemed content with his third place, however, and the only ones who did not call out with full-voiced appreciation were those women—and, most especially, men—who were faced with the sudden improvident debt of pairs of boots, fur coats, bits of their houses, and long-hoarded silver. Isaac surrendered his horse and bow to their owners and walked up to shake hands with the victors.

“Well done, Laine,” he said. “You were absolutely right about the lessons. Next week?”

“As usual,” she said, then laughed and elbowed him in the ribs at the look on Dian's face before turning aside to talk with Carla and Salvador. Silence fell as Isaac formally took Dian's hand.

“And you, Dian. I hope you are well pleased?”

“You gave me a run for my money, I'll give you that.” She hesitated, and then, in public view and with nothing held back, kissed him full on the mouth, to a surge of whistles and hoots.

Later, as they were making their way down the hill to a pre-siesta swim, Dian fell quiet, barely acknowledging the remarks of passersby. Eventually she said to Isaac, “That was very interesting, that was.”

“What? Beating me? Or almost losing?”

“Neither. Or both, I guess—more the reason you lost. You would have won if it hadn't been for the ride-by. I'm going to have to talk to Judith about giving the boys more riding experience.”

“Oh, look, I only let you win because I knew you'd be such a witch if you lost.”

“What! Double bastard!” she cried, and whacked him smartly on the back of his head. “Let's see how fast you are on your feet,” and she took off sprinting down the hill to the pond. He glanced around to make sure Teddy was with Susanna and set off after her, to the joy of the dogs giving chase. He hadn't a hope of catching her, though, and by the time he lumbered up and flung himself into the millpond, she was halfway across, floating nonchalantly on her back.

Twenty minutes later, clean and refreshed, they walked together up to her quarters for a siesta, which, though not precisely restful, was certainly relaxing. When Isaac had fallen asleep, Dian slipped quietly out and went for a round of the sentries. They had drawn lots for the duty, and the losers this year were promised next year free, so there was not too much resentment. She told each of them about the competitions, assured them they'd be relieved by the night sentries in time for dinner, and went back. She was just tying her necktie, a gaudy strip of orange and pink silk from some distant fashion era, when the big bell rang, a thing it usually did only for emergencies. Isaac shot up in bed.

“What was that for?”

Dian reached into the closet and plucked out the frilly gown that was his lot for the night, and tossed it lightly into the air so that it came to rest in a cloud of pink across his head.