She traced the rune on her hand with the tip of her finger, wondering if she should try to reach him. But she dared not leave her bed, and she did not want to make herself bleed. Her heart bled; that should be enough. It wasn’t enough, though, and she promised herself she would try in earnest soon.
Deep down, she was afraid it would not work, and Hod too would be gone forever. She could not bear that now. Not yet. So she held on to the hope of him and lay in the darkness, pulling the void into her chest and down into her belly until she felt nothing at all. Eventually, sleep followed.
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.