Nobody's Goddess (The Never Veil) Read online

  I glimpsed Jurij with his arm around Elfriede as they hugged yet another couple of almost strangers from the village who had come for the free wine and food. I was done celebrating for a lifetime.

  As Alvilda hugged her brother goodbye and rubbed a hand in Luuk’s mop of dark curls, Mother whispered something in Father’s ear and the two broke apart, Father’s face clearly full of the reluctance in his heart. He moved across the room to Jurij and Elfriede, and Mother came to visit me, sticking an arm through mine. She fanned a hand over her chest. “It’s hot in here. I thought we might take a walk.”

  You mean perhaps I should explain to you in private what I’m doing here in a damp, torn, dirty dress. We made our way through the crowd, Mother smiling and nodding at the few who looked away from their beloveds long enough to offer congratulations. When we broke free of the Great Hall door, I saw that night had already fallen. It was quiet in the village center. For once.

  “Is there anything you want to tell me?” asked Mother.

  Do you want to know why I’m a mess on the outside or on the inside? I clenched my jaw, looking forward. We walked westward, a wise move for a pair of women who might want to scan the horizon from time to time.

  “You know, your father wasn’t the first man I loved.”

  That made me look at her. “I doubt that!” I wondered if I should point out that their mouths were practically sewn together most of the waking day. And the sleeping night.

  Mother grinned. “No, it’s true.” The edges of her mouth drooped somewhat. “Of course, it was a doomed love. One man for every woman.”

  “Or no men for one woman.”

  Mother rubbed her shoulder into mine and tilted her head. “Come now, Noll, you know what I think about that.”

  I shrugged. “It’s all right. I don’t mind, I was just … ” Being angry. “So. Tell me about this man of yours.”

  “He wasn’t my man.” She, of course, took what I said literally. “He was Alvilda’s.”

  Oh. “But that means—”

  Mother tipped her head forward a bit. Her fingers dug into my skin. “He’s there.”

  By there, she didn’t mean any of the rows of houses along the path we were walking, nor the fields of crops that went on for leagues until stopped by the western mountains. Certainly not Alvilda’s home at the western edge of the village, where she peddled her woodcarvings as Father’s only competitor.

  No, between the fields and Alvilda’s lay a small outcropping of dilapidated shacks. Their roofs had holes in them. Their flooring, I was told, was just dirt and rocks and filth. Each shack looked likely to topple over. It was lucky for the men who lived there that no woman bothered spending much time nearby because if one happened to look up to the castle in the east, surely the entire commune would fall over.

  “That’s sad. Still, if Alvilda didn’t love him … ” I knew I’d feel guilty in her place, but there was no avoiding it. “I mean, it doesn’t seem fair that we can’t love who we want to.”

  Mother kept the slow pace toward the west, silent for a while. Then she opened her mouth, her lips almost trembling. “Women are not forced by nature to love. When we love, we do so of our own will. Men have no choice. But we have three: love at once, learn to love, or never love at all.”

  “You forgot one. Love a man who will never love you.”

  Mother squeezed my arm closer to her bosom. “That’s so poor a choice I wouldn’t wish it on anyone.”

  We didn’t speak for a moment more. At last, I moved my tongue. “But if it does happen?”

  Mother stopped. “Then you do the best you can to forget him.”

  You don’t know how I feel. You couldn’t have loved that man like I love Jurij. I strained to read her light-brown eyes. In the dying light, I thought I saw the glisten of a forgotten choice. “Do you still love him?”

  Mother let go of my arms and fanned a hand at me. “Don’t be ridiculous. I was a child. That was long ago. Before your father found the goddess in me.”

  I sighed. Of course. There couldn’t be anything to tarnish the sweet love between my parents. “So what was it about Father? The way he was bound to follow your every order?” Useful for commanding a man to be a lonely loveless girl’s friend, that.

  “Noll.” Mother shook her head, but there was a smile on her face. “To tell the truth, that part is sort of … disconcerting. Especially if you forget that anything you say that could possibly be construed as your direct command he does immediately. Even if you were joking.”

  “Do the commands and obeying really die down after the Returning like they say?” I snorted, thinking of this morning with Father. “It doesn’t seem that way.” Great. Jurij is going to keep pretending to be my friend, even though I could never live down what happened in the cavern.

  “That takes a bit of the pressure off. If it doesn’t appear that way to you, well, that’s just the man acting out of love. But don’t confuse it with pre-Returning commands. Those are absolute.”

  I thought of the little scene in the Great Hall. “I’m sure women like Mistress Tailor find that a benefit of not yet Returning their husbands’ affections.”

  Mother rolled her eyes. “Yes, well, women like Siofra take advantage of it if you ask me. Maybe some little revenge for the poor men who had no choice but to love them in the first place.”

  “Is that why women whose husbands are still masked seem to get more scorn than the women who send their men to the commune?”

  “Well, at the very least, those women are honest with themselves. And by choosing to devote themselves to a profession or hobby, they have value in the community. Still, I wouldn’t wish any woman to be in either position.”

  I forced myself to smile. “How lucky for you that it all worked out.”

  Mother paused before speaking. “Yes.”

  We stopped. We’d reached the western edge of the village. If we were going to go for a walk in the fields, we’d have to pass through the commune first. The stench was off-putting.

  A man in a faded, cracked mask stumbled from one edge of the commune to the other. I couldn’t tell what animal his face had once resembled. I figured he wouldn’t remember, either.

  He stopped and slumped over next to a basket. Dirt went flying as his rear hit the ground. The basket was full of bread and veggies, all of which were rotting. What didn’t make it for mulch for the fields got dumped to feed the men in the commune. At least the lord doesn’t seem to care if these unloved men are not invited. Not that they’d go.

  The man’s hand fumbled into the basket. He stuck the bread up beneath his mask, and I saw the mask bobbing. Between slow, slow bites of bread, he mumbled something, over and over and over.

  “What’s he saying?”

  “The name of his goddess.” Mother’s lips puckered. I wondered if the name was Alvilda, or if seeing any man in this state would give her the same reaction. “Let’s go.” She pulled us away in the opposite direction. Her gaze immediately sank to the dirt path and the footsteps we’d left behind. Mine did the same.

  “So what happens if a woman stops loving her man? I mean after she’s already Returned to him?” What happens if Elfriede wakes up tomorrow, her wonderful Returning day behind her, and gets bored with Jurij?

  Mother shook her head. The smile on her face seemed strained. “You ask every possible question, Noll.”

  “I just wondered if it’s ever happened before.”

  Mother tilted her head one way and then the next. “He’s safe once the Returning takes place. No woman’s eyes can ever hurt him.” She pressed her shoulder into mine. “Didn’t you hear the lord’s blessing? He proves his worthiness to his goddess, and his reward is a safe life thereafter, no matter how the goddess’s feelings change.”

  It seemed strange to me. “But how do we know for sure? A man has no choice but to love, but a woman’s heart … ” A woman’s heart could love one day and hate the next. Couldn’t it? Could I hate Jurij? Even after what he told me …r />
  “I know.” Mother chewed the inside of her cheek. “That is, we know. We know the men stay safe after a Returning. It’s happened before.” She patted the back of my hand. “Not that there’s anything for that woman to do, but to accept the man she’s deemed worthy by then. No one else will ever love her anyway.”

  Something seemed off about what she said. Maybe I was supposed to be worrying about her and Father. As if I didn’t have enough to worry about.

  We stopped to let a cart pass onto the dirt road in front of us. I lifted my head up as much as I dared and saw the door to the bakery shut, a cart full of heaping hot loaves and sweet buns, and a man in a mask in front of us. “Darwyn?” I ventured a guess. The baker had many sons, but this one was of a height with Jurij.

  He stopped pulling and turned. I couldn’t look up at his mask, though; he was too tall, and the castle was off in the distance behind him. “Miss, Ma’am,” he said, lifting up his cart handles and pulling his cart forward.

  “Miss?” I muttered. “We were friends for twelve years, you—”

  Mother stopped me. “You know they forget things like that once they find goddesses. What you and Jurij have is quite unusual.”

  What Jurij and I have was only at the command of his goddess. I wondered if in a few months we’d all be attending Darwyn’s wonderful Returning. Roslyn would soon be old enough, and they seemed as in love as every other coupling in the village. In fact, I overheard one of Elfriede’s sappy friends whisper that the two of them had even experimented a bit in the darkness. Guess the lips of one he used to find so girly and repulsive just couldn’t be waited for.

  “Where’s he going?” I asked. The Returning ceremony was surely almost over, and I knew we hadn’t ordered that much bread. There was enough to feed a hundred more guests at least.

  “To the castle,” replied Mother.

  A cart or two passed by our house on the way to the path through the woods almost every day. Goods the lord ordered to feed him and his servants. The deliveries would keep the lord appeased, so he’d never have to venture out to see us himself. They’d continually make sure this village had the first goddess’s blessing.

  “Have you ever seen him?”

  Mother laughed. “No woman is allowed to look at the castle, much less set foot in it. Why would I have seen him?” We didn’t say anything for a moment more, listening to the wheels turning on the cart a short distance in front of us. “I heard you were with Ingrith right before she died today.”

  That was rather blunt. I stopped walking, pulling on Mother’s arm to make her stop as well. “She was acting crazy, Mother. Even worse than usual.” Did she suspect I’d witnessed it? “She … she scared me.”

  “I’m sorry I sent you alone.” Mother took both of my hands in hers. “We were just all so busy.” She looked up and down at my wreck of a dress. “I figured there might be some explanation for how your dress got to be so tattered. Did you fall into one of the ponds during the earthquake?”

  Close enough. “Yeah. I didn’t have time to change.” Best to shift the focus elsewhere. “Mother, Ingrith called the lord a heartless monster.”

  Mother’s lips puckered. “That’s a rather rude way to address our benefactor, but I’ve heard the term before.” She put her arm back through mine and gently tugged me forward.

  “Who calls him that? And what does it mean?”

  Mother shook her head. “No one who’s properly grateful calls him that. And it doesn’t mean anything. Not what you’re expecting. Do you remember me telling you about kings and queens?”

  The little elf queen. That’s what I called myself. But kings and queens were just mythical figures in stories Mother used to tell Elfriede and me. “Yes.”

  “They make for wild tales.” She pinched my shoulder playfully. “The type that keep little girls lost in their own little fantasies. But they’re not real. They’re just what some person thought of, to fantasize about a world where women and men might have once been equal.”

  I wasn’t sure where she was heading with this. “So the lord isn’t real?”

  Mother snorted. “Of course he’s real. He watches over us, and he pays us well for our wares.”

  I nodded. “The men leave the supplies in the castle foyer and pick up the copper pieces left there.” Jurij had even gone once when he was smaller, to leave a few new sets of jerkins and trousers entirely in black. Odd, since the servants wore only white. “So even the men haven’t seen him before?”

  “No, they haven’t.” Mother heaved a deep sigh. “And when you don’t lay your eyes upon something yourself, it’s easy to make up stories, to fantasize about a man who doesn’t die.”

  “What?” Forgetting myself, my gaze was a little higher up than it ought to have been. Darwyn and his cart were still ahead of us, heading through the eastern part of the village, but we’d arrived back at the center. I stopped and faced Mother. “The lord doesn’t die?”

  “Don’t be silly.” Mother smiled and started tugging me back toward the Great Hall, though it was hard for me to tear my eyes from the cart, even if it was off in the eastern direction. “The lord watches over the village from the shadows, but he must pass the job to his son when he’s older, or maybe a child of one of the lord’s servants. They’re a secretive lot, never speaking, always just showing us the lord’s requests on parchments—that’s why we all learn to read. I refuse to believe that never finding your goddess makes you immortal. Every woman gets her man.”

  I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. Did Mother even know of any women who’d been a lord’s goddess? Who’d been a goddess of a specter? I never thought about it before. How were they going to have children without goddesses? Yet they were unmasked, so they must have had them at one point. When? “But does every man get his goddess?”

  Mother stood in front of me, sliding her hands onto both of my shoulders. “I’m not sure I’m comfortable with all of these questions. The lord is good to us. He watches over us on behalf of the first goddess. His secrets are his own. There is but one thing we all know for certain: If a woman lays eyes upon the lord of the castle, the penalty is death.”

  I shivered. The night was young, but it was promising to be cold. And I was in a damp and tattered dress with no time to stop at home and change.

  If Darwyn was making a late-night delivery, surely the lord would be awake and expecting his order. But would he be expecting me? Was he watching? Did he know? I’d fled the Great Hall almost as soon as Mother and I had arrived back, letting Father know I wanted to go home to change in case anyone missed me. He waved a hand and took his place at Mother’s side without saying anything. I watched him go briefly, but my gaze soon fell on the face I ought to have known for ages, the face I’d never before seen. Jurij had the widest eyes that I had ever seen, almost perfectly spaced below the softest eyebrows and the longest eyelashes. His lips were curled into a smile that set off dimples in each of his cheeks. The cleft in his chin cried out for a finger’s caress.

  His beauty was more than I imagined, his face impossible to forget. But it was because of Elfriede’s love that I was able to see him, and for that, the sight of his face made it so much harder. I tore my eyes from his beautiful features and turned to leave, quietly and unnoticed.

  She needed only love him for today, and he’s safe forever. That means he’s free.

  I shook my head to clear it. I’d been wrong about the Returning. But what would Jurij feel if he were actually free? I had a feeling that was something that only the goddess might be able to tell me. And since she was nowhere to be found, the lord was my only option. I trembled with expectation, with fear. This is it. I have nowhere else to turn. I can’t just go to bed and wake up, day after day, pretending my heart is still whole. I refuse to. The elf queen wouldn’t.

  I was on the road home, out past the eastern edge of the village. I jogged a few steps and then walked briskly, jogging and brisk walking, whatever it took to get down the road quickly without draw
ing too much attention. Looking at the ground as I went made jogging decidedly more difficult.

  I hesitated in front of the door to my house, then flung it open to check inside. I didn’t have time to change, and I didn’t care if the lord saw me in the ripped damp dress I was still wearing. It was my battle dress, a garment to show how hard I’d fought to make things right. Because if I was wrong and I wasn’t able to free Jurij from this mess, it might be all I left behind.

  I swallowed, but I was still determined. I couldn’t yet face Jurij again after what had happened, after he sealed a pact with my sister. Not unless I had something to give him. Not unless his heart was finally set free. I grabbed a dirty apron Mother had hung off the back of one of the chairs and wrapped it around my shoulders, using one fist like a broach at my neck to hold it in place. Better than wasting time searching for a proper cloak.

  I dashed off outside, not caring to properly close the door behind me. I jogged into the woods and heaved a great sigh of relief once I could look up safely again. It was then that I heard the turn of the cart, and I dived into the foliage. My heart just about jumped out of my throat when I glimpsed the wooden fox-face heading down the pathway in the western direction, the empty cart behind him. So the delivery is done. It’s time. I waited for Darwyn to pass, not daring to move a muscle. Possibly not even breathing.

  Once I heard the turn of the wheel fade away, I exhaled and jumped back onto the path. By then, the moon was so full that silver light poured from the sky and lit the way before me. Eventually the trees encroached upon the path so fully that I could no longer see the moon at all, but its silver light speckled through the leaves so softly I felt no reason to be afraid. I ventured on, pushing the occasional stray bough out of my way to go farther. And then the trees parted completely.